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1 





BILLY WHITLA 







An absorbing drama of real life :THE STORY of the 

KIDNAPING of 
BILLY WHITLA 

By HAMILTON PEARCE 

THE WELL KNOWN DESCRIPTIVE WRITER 


T HE full and authentic account of the 
Abdudtion, the Ransoming and the Return 
of Billy Whitla, and the Sensational Capture of 
the Kidnapers ^Including the remarkable 
human document “HOW I KIDNAPED 
EDDIE CUDAHY” by Pat Crowe 

the amazing story of the celebrated Omaha Abduction case, told 
by the kidnaper himself, who is now leading a Christian life 


(^Chapters on The Charlie Ross Case : Other famous 
Abductions : Mrs. James Whitla’s Advice to Ameri¬ 
can Mothers on How to Guard Children Against 
Kidnapers : With many Photographs and Drawings 
















Copyright, IQOQ 
by 

James E. Doyle , Jr. 



Juggernaut 

The final step was taken. 

Months of planning had passed. Everything 
had been made ready. A day or so spent in nerving 
themselves to the proper pitch of daring, and 
then— 

The abductors took B'illy WTiitla from his 
schoolroom. 

It was a simple thing. The boy merely 
climbed into the carriage. But the act of setting 
foot upon the vehicle’s step started a train of ter¬ 
rible events, each crowding upon the other. 

Like the child, whose frail touch starts the devas¬ 
tating avalanche, those who plotted the crime could 
only watch its progress, stiff with helpless terror, 
powerless to change the course of the juggernaut 
one hair’s breath. 

The step was taken. 

Thenceforth the abductors could play only a 
fascinated part, pitting their puny strength against 
the mighty momentum of fate. They made their 
one mistake— 

And were caught in the destruction they them¬ 
selves had set up. 

The thread of the story ran plain to its con- 
slusion. But there were the by-products: A day’s 
despair stamped forever on a mother’s memory; 
the disgrace of a man in his profession; the death 
of one unfortunate who brushed too near the crime; 
bitterness, dissention, strife, loss of position; shame 
brought upon a family,—these were some. 

The juggernaut followed the thread of the 
story, leaving the victims strewn behind. 














. 
























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Publisher’s Preface 


HE publishers believe this account of the kidnaping 



A of Billy Whitla, of Sharon, Pennsylvania, told 
here for the first time as a continuous, compact story, 
accurate in every detail and containing much “inside his¬ 
tory” not until now revealed to the public, is a book 
with a purpose. As a thrilling chapter from the annals 
of American criminal history, put in permanent form 
for the reading public, its worth is beyond question. 

Verily, “truth is stranger than fiction.” Never did 
the imagination of genius conceive a fantastic plot more 
compelling, more replete in stirring incident, more swift 
in its unfolding, more happy in its ending, than the true 
story of the abduction, the ransoming and the return of 
the little Sharon boy. And when to the completed ad¬ 
ventures of Billy was added the remarkable capture of 
his abductors, the perfect drama was made. No more 
intricate or absorbing tale ever came from the pen of a 
Dickens, a Balzac or a de Maupassant. 

Love, hatred, greed, fear, revenge, despair—the ele¬ 
mental human passions—all are here. And there is 
romance and tragedy, adventure and mystery in the 
story. Best of all, right triumphs and evil is brought 
to confusion, which is as it should be, and without which 
qualities no story or drama, even of the imagination, can 
be truly termed great. 

To call the story of the crime a drama is apology 
enough for it. In the drama good must prevail. So it 


6 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


is right to put this great story of real life into permanent 
form. There is not a line of the book that children 
should not be permitted to read. There is not a line but 
what every child should read. Often the moral lesson 
in stories of the imagination is passed over lightly by 
children because, in their wise little hearts, they know 
that personages who sin and suffer through the pages 
are but airy creatures who never really existed. And 
the lesson of such a story is the weaker for the children’s 
perception. But in these chapters, which but mirror 
actual occurrences which happened in March, 1909, in 
localities the names, at least, of which are known to all 
America, the moral truth that “the ungodly shall perish” 
is brought home to every mind with stunning force. 

From the standpoint of its interest alone, the pub¬ 
lishers believe this story is deserving of a place in the 
libraries of every home in the land. At the time the 
story was happening the newspapers at best could but 
print it in fragments and with inaccurate detail. Here 
it is seen as a whole, errors are omitted and many start¬ 
ling new facts are presented. And the whole is per¬ 
petuated in a volume worthy of it. 

There is the hope in the publishers’ minds that the 
book will prove not without value as an argument for 
morality. Should this volume be the means, even the 
indirect means, of deterring some one from an act of 
evil that might otherwise have been committed, the 
publication of the story will have been worth while. 

Mothers should read this story of the kidnaping of 
little Billy Whitla to their children. For in this volume 
are suggested some of the methods those in the home 
may use to guard the home against the ones who would 


publisher’s preface. 


7 


trespass upon it. This is an age of gold worship. New 
heights of daring to which the wicked rise in their quest 
for wealth are being reached year by year. The kid¬ 
naping of Billy Whitla has been a lesson to the country. 
We have been too careless in watching over our chil¬ 
dren. New vigilance is needed; new methods of pro¬ 
tection should be devised. This book will attempt to 
suggest some of these methods. 

To the Whitla story have been added chapters giving 
comprehensive histories of the Eddie Cudahy and 
Charlie Ross abductions. These two, with the Whitla 
abduction, form the three most remarkable instances of 
this crime America has ever had. Thus the book is 
given additional value to the student of criminology as a 
reference work. 


The Publishers. 


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Billy’s Mother, Mrs. 


James Whitla, of Sharon, Pa. 

V 











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Author’s Foreword 


'O ANSOMED, Billy Whitla is once again clasped in 
the yearning arms of his mother; the kidnapers are 
taken; their plunder is recovered. And now it remains 
to set the story down as I saw it—to try to make the 
pages reflect in some faint way the passion, the spirit, the 
life of the great, true drama that for one week dwarfed 
all other subjects in the American mind. 

There have been as remarkable stories, perhaps, in 
American life as that of the stealing of Billy Whitla. 
But never has there been one presented with such dra¬ 
matic power. 

In just one week—seven days—after the disguised 
man drove away from the Sharon school house with 
Billy Whitla, the boy had been recovered and the kid¬ 
napers, the confessed kidnapers, were on the train in 
Cleveland, being taken back to the scene of the crime to 
meet retribution. 

It was like a staged play—a play of intense heart 
interest—in eight acts. And the falling curtain of each 
act was the setting sun. 

The first act was the stealing of the child; the second 
and the third saw the opening of the ransom negotia¬ 
tions and the gathering of the forces of law for the man 
hunt; the fourth dealt with the heart-breaking failure 
of James Whitla to ransom his son at Ashtabula, Ohio; 
in the fifth came the denouement, the successful delivery 
of the $10,000 ransom and the return of Billy; the sixth 


IO 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WIIITLA. 


began the conclusion—the kidnapers were captured; the 
seventh unravelled the identity of the mysterious woman 
whose active brain conceived the crime; and the eighth 
threw the net of justice over the wrong doers and 
brought them to punishment. 

Not a moment’s delay in the entire action! Not a 
line too many or too few! 

It is my task to set this story down, as directly and as 
vividly as I can. I have gathered the story at first hand. 
My information comes from discussion with the heart¬ 
broken father while his boy was still missing; from see¬ 
ing a mother, weary from much anguish, patiently set 
the ever burning lamp in her window to guide the foot¬ 
steps of her returning boy; from close questioning of 
Billy after his return; from interviews with the kid¬ 
napers themselves; and from intimate talks with the 
detectives who conducted the search. 

It is not surprising, therefore, that I have gained 
much knowledge of the case that has never appeared in 
print before. The newspapers, frantic for the develop¬ 
ments of the moment, could only tell the story in frag¬ 
ments. Naturally, much error crept into their hasty 
accounts. Naturally, too, many features of the case 
escaped their notice altogether. And these very features 
do much to heighten the interest of the story as well as 
to give a clearer idea of the forces at work during the 
progress of the case. 

The story, I believe, deserves to be told as a story 
and not as a series of disconnected anecdotes. Accord¬ 
ingly, I will try to set it down in that way, preserving 
to the end some hint of that breathless suspense that 


author’s foreword. 


II 


held the country spellbound while Billy Whitla was 
missing and his abductors uncaught. 

Was there a mother in America not vitally interested 
in seeing Billy Whitla returned to his mother? It is 
hard to believe it. Thousands of them bowed reverent 
heads that Sunday while priests and ministers prayed 
for the lad’s return. Some were praying even when the 
boy leaped into his father’s arms. 

It is the intention of the author to make this volume 
a fitting one to preserve the story of Billy Whitla for 
the thousands of mothers and children who rejoiced 
when he was found. And it is to those mothers and 
children that this volume is dedicated. 

Hamilton Pearce. 


Sharon, Pa. 











































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✓ 











































. 






























































James H. Boyle, the Kidnaper of Billy 












Billy’s Uncle, Frank H. Buhl, of Sharon, Pa. 












































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CHAPTER I. 


THE GREAT STONE HOUSE. 

The Millionaire Uncle } s Love For Billy Whitla. 
HE great stone house was the cause of it all. 



It was a massive house—a very grand house 
even for the rich steel town. 

The stone house had sweeping wings and a mag¬ 
nificent porch, dormer windows and cupolas and a re¬ 
trogression of roofs. A broad vista of lawn led up to 
the stone house. Costly windows mirrored back the 
likenesses of pedestrians and vehicles of the street. 

The house was new, compared to many stone houses. 
No lichens clung greenly to its gray walls. Its outlines 
were sharp and mathematically exact. 

But at sunset the gleaming windows were ablaze with 
the day’s splendid death. And in the winter twilight the 
brown smoke curled from its chimneys. Through the 
half drawn shades and rich curtains the passer-by could 
catch glimpses of richly hued lights—reds and browns 
and restful greens. 

And all the newness and massiveness of structure and 
the windows softly glowing in the first darkness of 
evening suggested that inside were wealth and warmth 
and luxury. 

The house was one of the sights of the city of Sharon, 
Pennsylvania. Your guide would take you about, first 
pointing out the city buildings. Then you would visit 
under his leadership the great steel works of South 
Sharon. 


14 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


When you had seen all the industrial and civic sights 
of the bustling city, you would be driven through the 
residence streets. Finally you would see ahead the great 
stone house, proudly aloof from its neighbors in its 
expanse of surrounding lawn. The number of turrets 
and wings and gables would increase in your range of 
vision as you drew nearer. 

“That is the residence of Frank H. Buhl, the million¬ 
aire steel manufacturer,” your guide would announce. 
Then he would wait for the usual exclamation of ap¬ 
preciation. 

When the Sharon people spoke of the size of Buhl’s 
fortune, they did so in whispers. No one knew what it 
was exactly. Some said it was five million dollars; 
some, fifty. At any rate it was many, many millions, so 
many the ordinary person could not possibly realize the 
meaning of the figures. It is doubtful if Buhl could 
himself. 

And sometimes, when one looked at the house, one 
saw a child at play in the yard—a boy. Often he would 
have two or three playmates with him. Yet no matter 
the number of children in the yard, one would take 
notice of the boy. 

He was a frail little fellow, eight years old and of 
medium height for his age. What he lacked in physical 
strength he made up in courage. 

In childish races and games his slender legs flashed 
the quickest of any. Was there a tree to be climbed? 
He was the first in the branches. 

Most of the time he was dressed in those knicker- 
bocker suits of rich texture that wealthy parents can 


THE GREAT STONE HOUSE. 


15 


afford to buy for their children. His suits were invari¬ 
ably in soft, light shades of gray and brown. Often¬ 
times under his Norfolk blouse he wore a gray sweater 
waistcoat with a scarlet border. 

His face was pale. Yet when he ran fast or brought 
the exicting tale of some boyish adventure to the older 
ones he knew, a delicate pink crept into his cheeks. 

His hair was light yellow, of the shade that in later 
life usually turns to a deep brown. It was thin upon 
his head and easily brushed into parts whenever the 
wind blew hard upon it or when he would jerk off his 
cap in the abandon of play. When he was dressed ready 
for school his hair was brushed back from his forehead. 
But after a few moments of romping it would shake 
down to form an even bang across his brow. 

He had very boyish ears. They were large and they 
set out at right angles from his head. His face was 
rounded, and at the tip of the chin there was the sug¬ 
gestion of a dimple. 

But the most remarkable feature of this boy’s appear¬ 
ance was his eyes. They were a clear gray, set wide 
apart, and they gazed straight at one with the serious 
trust of the child who has never had his faith in men or 
women shaken. 

Altogether he was a beautiful child; the sort doting 
grandmothers spoil with attentions, while perplexed, 
yet proud, parents make smiling remonstrances; the 
sort adoring uncles and aunts load down with toys and 
candy. 

That was Billy Whitla, as he romped upon the 
grounds of his uncle Frank Buhl’s great Sharon estate 
shortly before he became the central figure in one of the 
most heartless crimes ever committed in America. 


1 6 THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 

Across the wide street from the stone house was the 
home of Billy’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. James Whitla. 
It was a more modest structure than the Buhl mansion, 
yet one that displayed the signs of wealth at the same 
time. 

The Whitla house was a frame structure. It, too, 
had an expanse of lawn with many tall trees obstructing 
the view. And there was a wide porch, broad gables 
and a tower. But it did not compare with the stone 
house in pretentiousness. The observer would mark it 
as the home of a man of taste and means who cared lit¬ 
tle for ostentation and display. 

The boy, Billy, was as often at play on the Buhl 
grounds as he was on the porch or lawn of his father’s 
place. That was not remarkable. Everyone in Sharon 
knew the Buhl and Whitla families divided the time in 
having charge of Billy. He was almost owned jointly 
by the two families. He was equally at home in either 
house. 

And thus it came about that the great stone house in 
the beginning inspired the great Whitla kidnaping case. 

There were palms that itched for gold when their 
owners saw the manifestations of the love Millionaire 
Buhl bore for his light-haired, light-hearted nephew. 

Somewhere, when the boy romped with his puppy in 
the snow, the evil eyes of greed watched. 

And at night, when in the glow of the soft lamp-light 
could be seen a heavy hand patting the boy’s head, or a 
woman’s tender lips brushed to his, the crafty eyes out 
in the cold and darkness watched closely. 

And in those ever-watching eyes came a light—the 
light of the lust for gold. 


THE GREAT STONE HOUSE. 


17 


The crafty eyes bore the message to a crafty brain, 
which planned and planned and planned. 

James Whitla, the lawyer, and Frank H. Buhl, the 
steel magnate, married sisters. The two women were 
much alike. Both possessed a similar type of beauty. 
Both were gracious ladies, more fond of home life and 
domestic pursuits than they were of dress and society. 
Both loved children. Both adored Billy. 

But Whitla and Buhl were opposites. Buhl was 
stocky in build, past the middle of life, the typical re¬ 
tired captain of industry who has fought and won the 
battle of life. 

Whitla was lean of body, lean of face, in the prime of 
his career. His features were clean cut as those of a 
cameo. His every action showed him to be the nervous 
brain worker. 

Buhl, grizzled, rugged of face, lover of rich food and 
entertainment, the pursuer of wealth; Whitla, of the 
bony jowl, indifferent of physical pleasures, the keen 
searcher for facts. 

Buhl’s mustache and hair were iron gray; Whitla, 
smooth shaven, was almost silvery white upon his head. 

In one respect they stood on common ground. Both, 
like their wives, adored Billy Whitla. 

Buhl’s affection for his small nephew attracted gen¬ 
eral attention in Sharon. Whenever the boy was not at 
school or at play about the two houses he was sure to be 
somewhere with his uncle. 

The millionaire took the boy on his drives about the 
city. The child went with him to the steel mills. He 
played about the offices. He accompanied his uncle 
through the mills. The hundreds of workmen liked 


1 8 THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 

him. They spoke to him, hoping to find favor with the 
mill owner by pleasing the child. 

The evilly inclined had equal chance with the honest 
to observe Buhl’s love for the boy. 

There was the prize—the millions of Frank H. Buhl. 

There was the bait—the yellow-haired boy whom the 
old man worshiped. 

Did the crafty eyes gleam? Did palms itch for the 
feel of money? Did shrewd, cruel brains plan? 

Buhl received a blackmailing letter. It threatened 
him with terrible harm unless he should give over 
money. 

It was not the first letter of the kind the millionaire 
had received. It was an everyday occurrence in the life 
of the rich man. He hardly gave it the attention of 
turning it over to the police. 

Instead of worrying, he and Billy Whitla took rides 
together. Billy went to school. After school he played 
on the Buhl lawn with his small friends. 


CHAPTER II. 


BILLY IVHIT LA IS STOLEN. 

“IVe Will Return Him For $10,000. Dead Boys 
Are Not Desirable.” 

O N the morning of Thursday, March eighteenth, 
1909, Billy Whitla arose from bed earlier than 
usual. 

His “big sister,” Selina, aged thirteen, heard him stir¬ 
ring about in his room and went in to him. 

“I want to go out and play before breakfast,” was 
the command of the young lord of two households, as 
he sat bolt upright in bed. 

“Very well, dear,” was his sister’s response, as she 
started to help him with his dressing. 

In a very few minutes Billy was out in the street rid¬ 
ing his bicycle. 

The other members of the family, too, arose early. 

Whitla the night before had announced he must take 
a business trip to Wilmington, a town a short distance 
from Sharon. He wanted to get an early train. 


20 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


By the time the family were seated at the breakfast 
table Billy came in from his ride. His cheeks had the 
faint glow which his mother knew meant robust health 
for him. 

She kissed him and hugged him tight for a moment as 
he stood beside her chair. She snuggled her face in his 
neck, cool from the brisk morning air. 

“Well, colonel,” said his father, “you’re up with the 

larks this morning.” 

Billy regarded his father gravely. 

“There aren’t any larks yet this spring, papa,” he 
said, with the severe wisdom of an eight-year-old. 
“Nothin’ but ‘spatsies.’ ” 

“What are ‘spatsies’?” asked Mrs. Whitla, bewil¬ 
dered. 

“He means sparrows,” explained Selina. 

“Who taught you that word?” demanded the boy’s 
father. 

“The fellers,” replied Billy briefly. “That’s what 
they all call them.” 

“You mustn’t be repeating what the ‘fellers’ say,” ad¬ 
monished Whitla. 

Billy applied himself to his porridge. Mrs. Whitla 
poured him a cup of coffee. It was a pleasant domestic 
scene, one that may be witnessed in almost any Ameri¬ 
can home any morning. The quiet conversation kept 
on. Presently Whitla arose. 


BILLY WHITLA IS STOLEN. 


21 


“I’ll have to hurry to get that train,” he announced. 

He kissed his daughter. Then he passed around to 
Billy’s place. He patted his son’s silky head. 

“Haven’t you got a kiss for your dad?” he asked. 

Boylike, Billy found time between bites of toast to 
submit to the caress. Mrs. Whitla accompanied her 
husband to the door. When she returned Billy had 
finished eating. 

“I’ll get you ready for school now, dear,” she said. 

Billy had some doubts about it. 

“I don’t know as I’m feelin’ just good,” he com¬ 
plained. 

“Nonsense, young man,” was his mother’s prompt 
reply. “You never looked healthier in your life.” 

“I was thinkin’, mama, it was my turn to explain the 
motto today, and Mrs. Lewis will be real mad if I don’t 
know it.” 

“What is the motto today?” inquired his mother. 

“ ‘The wicked flee when no man pursueth.’ ” 

“Well, you know how you feel when you’ve been 
naughty,” explained his mother. 

“Yes’m.” 

“How you don’t want to see anybody?” 

“Yes’m.” 

“Well, that’s what the motto means. But then, my 


22 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WH1TLA. 


little boy isn’t ever very naughty. You can tell Mrs. 
Lewis the explanation, though.” 

Billy’s hair was brushed and a fresh bow was tied 
under his chin. He was ready to go. 

“Will you stop in to see Aunty Buhl?” asked Mrs. 
Whitla as she kissed her son. 

“Yes’m,” answered Billy. And he scampered across 
the street as fast as his slim little legs could carry him. 
He kissed his fond aunt good-bye, returned home for 
his bicycle and rode off to the East Ward school house. 

He did not return at noon. 

Mrs. Whitla at first thought he was eating lunch at 
Buhl’s. She did not worry, but took the precaution to 
run across the street to see if he had returned from 
school safely. 

He hadn’t been there. 

Mrs. Whitla was growing somewhat uneasy about 
him. She resolved to punish Billy for staying away 
without telling her. It occurred to her the boy might 
have stopped at noon with a very great chum of his, 
Mrs. William Southard, an invalid, who lived near the 
school. She called up the house by telephone. 

Billy had not been seen. 

Billy liked to play marbles. He was not allowed to 
play for keeps, but he found the game very fascinating 
for all that. He was a good shot for a boy only eight 
years old. Mrs. Whitla thought perhaps his devotion 
to the game had conquered his appetite for lunch. He 


BILLY WHITLA IS STOLEN. 


23 


was probably playing the game along the street some¬ 
where between the Whitla house and the school, she 
thought. 

She put on her hat and coat and started out searching 
for him. The day was somewhat warm. The feel of 
spring was in the air. It was just the sort of a day to 
make a young man Mrs. Whitla knew of forget all 
about coming home after school in his absorption play¬ 
ing marbles, she thought, as she walked hurriedly along 
the street. 

She walked to the school house and back again, stop¬ 
ping at every group of marble players to inquire after 
Billy, gazing up all of the side streets. 

But she-didn’t find Billy. 

He must be at home by this time, the mother thought 
as she turned in at her door. Already it was time for 
him to be starting back for school. He would have to 
hurry or be late. Surely she would find him in the 
house. There would be just time to scold him a little 
and then hurry him off for the afternoon session. 

But Billy had not been at home. 

The mother was getting really alarmed by this time. 
She called up the school house. Janitor Wesley Sloss 
answered. 

“Why, I supposed you knew,” came Sloss’ voice over 
the wire. “His pa sent for him.” 

“His father!” 

“Why, yes. It’s all right, I reckon. Sent a man in 
a buggy for him, stranger to me, too. Kind of a heavy 


24 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


set fellow with a black mustache. Everything’s all right, 
though. Billy’s pa sent a note.” 

“Was it early—what time did he send?” asked Mrs. 
Whitla. 

“About half past nine, I think it was.” 

The mother hung up the receiver, bewildered with 
what she had heard. She couldn’t understand. She 
didn’t try. She called up Mrs. Anna Lewis, Billy’s 
teacher. 

“I’m sure everything’s all right, Mrs. Whitla,” came 
the voice of the teacher. “The note for Billy came just 
at nine-thirty. I remember, because that is the time we 
always take up our motto. It was Billy’s turn today, 
and he gave that cute little explanation you taught him. 
He was at the blackboard writing the motto when the 
janitor brought up the note. 

“I remember perfectly what the note said. I read: 

“ ‘William Whitla is wanted at once at his father’s 
office.’ 

“I allowed him to go immediately, of course. I 
looked from the window and saw him get into the 
buggy. The buggy had the side curtains up and was 
very muddy. Perhaps you know what rig it was. I 
wouldn’t worry any if I were you. He’s no doubt with 
his father now.” 

Selina, meanwhile, had run across the street and 
brought Mrs. Buhl. It was getting on towards two 
o’clock in the afternoon. Mrs. Whitla seemed reas- 


BILLY WHITLA IS STOLEN. 


25 


sured when she finished talking with Mrs. Lewis. Then 
a new thought of terrible significance came to her. She 
exclaimed aloud: 

“The note came at nine-thirty. But Mr. Whitla left 
the city at eight.” 

The maid servants came into the room. The house¬ 
hold was an uproar of frightened women. All were 
thinking the same thoughts. The muddy carriage! The 
strange man! The impossibility of Whitla’s having 
sent for his son. But finally it was the mother who first 
recovered her presence of mind. 

“Perhaps James took a later train. I’m sure he 
wouldn’t have taken Billy with him unless he had told 
me about it. But he must have done so. There’s no 
other explanation. Let’s telegraph him at once. No. 
Get him on the long distance telephone. Oh, I’m sure 
it’s all right. But hurry, hurry.” 

The jangling of the doorbell interrupted her. Mrs. 
Whitla herself answered it. The other women fol¬ 
lowed, forming for her a background of frightened 
faces. A gray coated mail carrier stood at the door. He 
handed Mrs. Whitla a letter. She gave it a hasty 
glance 

“Billy’s handwriting.” 

The words were uttered quickly and tensely. As she 
spoke Mrs. Whitla ripped open the letter and spread out 
the enclosure. She seemed to be very, very long about 
it, but as she read a gray pallor spread downwards from 
her temples. Finally it reached her lips, and the post¬ 
man sprang forward to catch her unconscious body. 


2 6 


TIIE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


He half dragged, half carried her to a chair. The 
other women picked up the letter from the floor where 
it had dropped from the mother’s lifeless fingers. 

They saw that every line, every letter was in Billy’s 
handwriting. But these were the words that burned 
themselves forever into Mrs. James Whitla’s memory: 

“We have your boy and will return him for $10,000. 
Will see your advertisements in the papers. Insert in 
Indianapolis News, Cleveland Press, Pittsburg Dis¬ 
patch, Youngstown Vindicator. ‘A. A.—Will do as 
requested. J. P. W.’ 

“P. S.—Dead boys are not desirable.” 


CHAPTER III. 


THE LIGHT IN THE WINDOW . 

“If He is Gone A Lifetime, That Lamp Shall Always 
Burn” 

u T\ EAD boys are not desirable.” 

The concluding sentence of the ransom letter 
crushed the final remaining bit of strength Mrs. James 
Whitla had, as though it had been a brutal blow in her 
face. 

“Dead boys—” 

The reading of the sinister threat left the other wom¬ 
en sick with horror. Mrs. Buhl was half frantic with 
fear. 

It was incredible to the women that little Billy 
Whitla, who had never harmed a child or a dumb ani¬ 
mal in his brief eight years of uneventful existence, 
should be the one singled out as the victim of a diabol¬ 
ical plot for extorting money from an anguished father 
—for discounting a father’s love in dollars. 

That the same Billy, who rode away to school so hap¬ 
pily on his bicycle but six hours before should now be in 
the hands of desperate criminals who would not hesitate 
to take his life should their ends be thwarted—it was all 
too sudden to be realized! 

And yet his disappearance, the strange man, the mud 
spattered carriage, the letter demanding the ransom— 
the truth could no longer be doubted. 


28 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


Billy was kidnaped! 

It was his “big sister” Selina who first recovered her 
self-possession, while the others were reviving Mrs. 
Whitla and trying to soothe the hysteria of Mrs. Buhl. 
A dispatch was sent hastily to Whitla in Wilmington. 
A telephone message brought Buhl, the millionaire, in a 
hurry. 

Buhl’s big rumbling voice soon brought a measure of 
calmness to the women, and he was able to give his 
whole attention to making plans. 

“One thing may comfort you,” he said gruffly to his 
wife and sister-in-law. “You can bank on it they, won’t 
harm Billy. What they’re after is money. The kid is 
their stock in trade.” 

Buhl’s heart was crushed under the force of the blow 
that had struck into his love for Billy. But after the 
manner of men who do not give way easily to emotion, 
he assumed a roughness he did not feel. 

“And the first thing to do is to reply as they have or¬ 
dered us,” he said. “We don’t mind the ransom. We 
want Billy first.” 

His matter of fact way of assuming charge of the 
case made the mother and her sister more hopeful. Al¬ 
ready the situation seemed brighter. If it were only a 
matter of money and not Billy’s safety. But then Buhl 
had just said Billy was in no danger. And Frank Buhl 
was not a man of idle words. 

Mrs. Whitla and Mrs. Buhl were soon doing their 
share in helping the millionaire carry out his preliminary 
plans. 

Buhl didn’t stop to investigate the circumstances sur¬ 
rounding the stealing of Billy until he had dispatched 



The Rig *in Which Boyle Carried Billy from Sharon 











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The Mysterious Woman in the Case—Mrs Helene Boyle (nee Anna McDermott) Convicted as One of 

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Billy’s Prison Bed 

















THE LIGHT IN THE WINDOW. 


29 


telegrams to the Indianapolis News, the Cleveland 
Press, the Pittsburg Dispatch and the Youngstown Vin¬ 
dicator. The dispatch read as the kidnapers had dic¬ 
tated it. 

“A. A.—Will do as requested. J. P. W.” 

So promptly did Buhl act that the Cleveland Press 
published the telegram of compliance with the kid¬ 
napers’ demands in its Thursday evening edition, and 
wired the message to all its correspondents in America 
for publication that same day. 

Thus immediately Buhl opened the way to a quick 
ransoming of Billy Whitla, if arrangements could be 
made and carried through. 

Buhl’s next step was to get the Perkins Detective 
Agency, of Pittsburg, on the wire and direct them to 
take full charge of the case. They were to spare no 
expense, using as many men as G. B. Perkins, head of 
the agency, should see fit to put on the case. 

The police department of Sharon, and the depart¬ 
ments of many other cities, had already been informed 
of the crime. The Sharon police were wiring out de¬ 
scriptions of Billy and the child stealer who came to the 
East Ward school building. 

Then Buhl himself began an investigation. He talked 
to Mrs. Lewis, Billy’s teacher, and to Wesley Sloss, the 
school janitor who delivered the note. 

“The very thing I told Billy,” said the janitor. 

“ ‘Don’t let anybody kidnap you, Billy,’ I said. Those 
were my very words. 

“I didn’t get to see the man in the buggy very good. 
He had the side curtains up and he sort of stayed back 


30 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


in the shadow. Of course, I thought it was all right— 
he had the note. 

“But, as near as I can remember, he had good square 
shoulders, dark hair and a dark mustache. Somehow 
that mustache looked suspicious to me, now that I know 
what he was. I think it was a disguise. He wore a stiff 
hat, as I recollect it.” 

Mrs. Lewis repeated the same story she told Mrs. 
Whitla over the telephone. 

And then-—a man with a sharp-cut face gray with ap¬ 
prehension strode up the front walk leading into the 
Whitla house. Buhl rushed out upon the porch to meet 
him. The millionaire’s rugged face then, for the first 
time, showed emotion. 

The two men’s hands met. 

“Frank!” 

“James! I’m so sorry!” 

“It’s true then. I wouldn’t believe—” 

“We’re after him now.” 

“You know, Frank, it isn’t a question of the money. 
It’s only Billy,” said Whitla. 

“I’d give $100,000 to be able to return him to his 
mother tonight,” Buhl declared dramatically. 

“We’ll get him. We’ll get him.” Whitla was re¬ 
peating the words through his clenched teeth. 

“And if they have harmed a hair of his head,” he 
continued, raising his right arm, “I will never as long as 
I live, as long as I have a penny to my name, give up 
the search for them.” 

Buhl, too moved to speak, patted the other man on 
the shoulder. Then Whitla went into the house, where 


THE LIGHT IN THE WINDOW. 


31 


to him alone his wife sobbed away some of her pent up 
grief. 

But presently the two men were in consultation again. 
And then the total campaign was agreed upon. Whitla 
was to deliver the ransom to whatever amount and in 
whatever way the child stealers should designate. 

The public police departments were to be kept in 
ignorance of the plans for ransoming the boy. There 
was the single end to be worked for—the return of Billy. 
Nothing else counted. Only the boy! 

Only to take from that mother’s eyes a look of a de¬ 
spair so terrifying that it meant insanity for her if long 
continued! 

Only to bring Billy back to the “fellers” and his bi¬ 
cycle and puppy and toys and uncles and aunts and his 
family! 

The kidnaping might be a black crime. The deliver¬ 
ing of ransom might violate the rules of all the city 
detective departments in the country. That didn’t 
matter. 

If the only way to recover Billy Whitla was to de¬ 
liver the ransom, the ransom was to be delivered. 

If Billy Whitla’s safe return depended upon an agree¬ 
ment that no attempt should be made to capture the 
child stealers after the delivery of the ransom, no at¬ 
tempt would be made. 

Whitla and Buhl would act in good faith, at any rate. 

And the Perkins Detective Agency, the largest in the 
central west, was to be engaged for a single purpose. 

That purpose was not to trace the boy and re-capture 
him. 


32 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


It was not to close in upon the kidnapers the moment 
the ransom was delivered. 

It was not even to try to effect the capture of the ab¬ 
ductors after Billy should be returned. 

The Perkins Detective Agency’s sole duty was to keep 
the hands of city detectives off the case. 

Buhl and Whitla arrived at this decision without dis¬ 
cussion. It was then late in the evening. The two men 
told the women to retire to get what rest they could. 
The men took up quarters in a rear room of the Whitla 
house and prepared for an all night vigil, awaiting de¬ 
velopments. 

All of the women made the pretense of seeking sleep 
—but one. The one who didn’t was Mrs. Whitla. 

Instead she worked, fixing a light in a front window, 
so the rays would illumine the front walk. 

“They may send him home in the night,” she said, 
simply. “I want him to be able to see his way up the 
steps without stumbling. 

“As long as he is gone, if it’s as long as I shall live, 
that light will be kept burning.” 

Then Mrs. Whitla joined the vigil of the men in the 
rear room. 


CHAPTER IV. 


THE HUE AND CRY . 

Anglo-Saxon Blood Will Not Tolerate Him Who 
Outrages a Mother’s Love . 

“T>ILLY WHITLA has been kidnaped!” 

Sharon caught the news first. Mysterious rumor, 
swift as wild fire, swept the town. Almost as soon as 
the mother herself had realized the truth, the tidings of 
the crime were on the lips of every man, woman and 
child in Sharon. 

Sharon could not believe it. Everybody knew Billy 
Whitla. His little piping voice had been a familiar 
sound as he rode through the business streets on his 
bicycle. 

Workmen in the mills knew him. He had exchanged 
grave opinions with many of them. And every man 
who had ever spoken a word to Billy was now retailing 
to eager listeners the circumstances of the conversation. 

Billy was the pet of hundreds of people who did not 
even know his parents personally. He had engaged in 
snowball fights with the town policemen. The postman 
knew him. They had often spared him a few moments 
to catch his ball or watch him spin his top. The butcher 
boys had chaffed with him familiarly. The boys who 
drove the grocery wagons had allowed him to ride with 
them. 

And he was gone—stolen—held for $10,000 ran¬ 
som ! 


34 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


Business in the town suspended. The people collected 
on the streets in small groups. Women ran across 
streets with aprons over their heads. There was but a 
single topic on the public tongue—the kidnaping of 
Billy. 

Wesley Sloss, the janitor, was interviewed a hundred 
times. His story—the description of the man who stole 
Billy—was learned by heart. The knots of people col¬ 
lected into crowds. Still there was some incredulity. 

But there was none after the crowds had caught a 
glimpse of the face of Whitla, being driven hastily from 
the railroad station to his home. The truth was only 
too apparent there. 

There was little thought of food for Sharon that 
evening. The people thronged together, grasping for 
new developments. 

Some one caught sight of the bowed head of Mrs. 
Whitla, setting the lamp in the front window. The 
story of the light in the window buzzed through the 
streets. 

The simple act of placing the light, mute testimonial 
of a mother’s love, at once hopeful and despairing, set 
Sharon into a blaze of wrath against the child stealers. 

Men were haranguing the people. 

“Quick!” shouted a speaker. “They may still be in 
town. Let’s hunt them out.” 

The spirit of the cry was taken up zealously. 

“Search everything,” shouted men, running through 
the streets. “Houses, lofts, barrels, sheds!” 


THE HUE AND CRY. 


35 


The men scattered to their homes to equip themselves 
for the search. Grimly they slipped revolvers into their 
pockets. Some carried shotguns and rifles. 

Then began the search—a search that continued for 
many days. Lanterns flickered through dark yards. 
The men hunted in groups of threes and fours. Few 
threats were made audibly. But every man understood 
that all the deputies and policemen in Sharon were not 
enough to save the kidnapers if they should be dis¬ 
covered with Billy in their possession. 

The news spread into the country—through the 
county. The farmers were out with dogs, shotguns and 
lanterns. The fields were raked for traces of the lost 
boy. Haystacks were overturned. Lanters twinkled 
through thickets and treacherous swamps. Barns and 
brush heaps were searched alike. 

But no trace of the missing Billy Whitla! 

The hunt pushed out in area. The news of the abduc¬ 
tion spread like a wave in a pond. 

Before the first dawn paled the east the farmers and 
villagers for a distance of thirty miles in every direction 
from Sharon were searching. 

“Billy Whitla has been kidnaped!’’ 

The news acted as the press of a finger upon the but¬ 
ton that starts a great machine in motion. 

The wheels and cogs started were parts of the great 
machine of the legal man hunt. 

The prosecutor of Mercer County, in which Sharon 
is situated, began the organized search by telegraphing 
for the Pennsylvania mounted police. 


3 6 THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 

A company was at once dispatched to the scene of the 
crime. The people knew then the hunt would be to the 
bitter end. 

They call the mounted police the “Cossacks of Penn¬ 
sylvania.” They are hard riders, hard thinkers and 
straight shooters. They have been called upon to act in 
all the important criminal cases the state has had in 
recent years. Coal strike riots find them on duty. The 
company that came on the order of the Mercer County 
prosecutor to take up the search for Billy left a cam¬ 
paign of extermination against the Black Hand society 
to hunt for the boy. 

In a few hours the uniformed, mounted couriers of 
the Pennsylvania Cossacks were clattering along the 
roads in the vicinity of Sharon. 

“Billy Whitla is kidnaped!” 

The message was the spur that drove the detective 
department of the great steel corporation into action. 

The steel trust’s police force is as efficient as any 
private agency in the country. It is maintained to pursue 
and catch criminal offenders against the property of the 
corporation. , 

But Buhl was an important figure in the steel world. 
His beloved boy had been stolen. It was enough. The 
iron detectives of Pennsylvania took up the hunt. 

Word came from the Perkins Agency in Pittsburg 
that a squad of officers was being dispatched at once to 
look over the ground, and that within a few hours two 
hundred Perkins detectives would be in Sharon. 

Before dark on Thursday, the day Billy was taken, 
many of the great corporations of the country had vol¬ 
untarily joined in the hunt. 


THE HUE AND CRY. 


37 


Railroad police bureaus brought in descriptions of the 
kidnaper and his little victim to their main offices as fast 
as the wires would carry the dispatches. All trains, 
including freight trains, were to be watched and 
searched. There wasn’t a road in the Central States the 
kidnapers could take without danger of capture. 

Gas companies, whose police officers patrol hundreds 
of miles of mains through the country, concerned them¬ 
selves in the chase of the child stealers. 

The Standard Oil corporation instructed its pipe line 
patrolmen to watch out for the abductors through the 
country. 

Telegraph companies enlisted their linemen in the 
search. 

The whole central portion of the nation was like a 
live wire, charged with silent lightning against the 
abductors. 

Late Thursday evening the first trace of the kidnapers 
was gained. The buggy, in which Billy Whitla left the 
East Ward school with the strange man with the stocky 
shoulders, was found at Warren, a town twenty-five 
miles west of Sharon across the Ohio boundary. 

The news set up a new area of search. Warren 
became the center of the man hunt. Automobiles, trains 
and trolley cars carried the searching officers there. 

‘‘Billy Whitla has been kidnaped!” 

The news was screamed in headlines across a hundred 
newspapers Thursday evening. 

A hundred thousand American mothers read, and a 
chill as from the near presence of something evil and 
terrible, fell upon their hearts. 


38 THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 

The crime was a trespass upon the sanctity of the 
home. It was an outrage committed upon a mother’s 
love. 

It was one of the two crimes Anglo-Saxon blood will 
not tolerate. The other is that crime which has given 
rise to the lynch law in the South. 

That night a hundred thousand American mothers 
fell upon their knees and prayed. 

“Oh, God, restore Billy Whitla safe to his parents.” 

In the front window of a home in Sharon a light 
burned all night long, illuminating the sidewalk leading 
to the front door. 

And in a rear room two men and a woman kept vigil. 


CHAPTER V. 


THE HUNT BEGINS . 

This Is a Common Terror—The Fear of the Child 
Stealer . 

E AGER as hounds, the hunters gathered for the 
chase. The prize for success . was glory and 
wealth; the game, human beings. The man hunt, most 
exhilarating of all sports, was on. 

The three of them—Buhl and Mr. and Mrs. Whitla 
—maintained a silent vigil all night long at the Whitla 
home. Midnight struck, and still no word had come. 
They spoke but seldom, each brain busy—Buhl plan¬ 
ning the campaign to recover the boy and bring the ab¬ 
ductors to justice; Whitla determining that no chase of 
the criminals should interfere with his compliance with 
their demands; Mrs. Whitla imagining a thousand 
dangers her baby might be facing. 

As the night wore on occasional parties of searchers 
returned to their homes, their plodding steps awaken¬ 
ing sullen echoes through the silent streets. Their 
heads drooped with weariness. A lantern or two flared 
dingily in smoky globes. 

At the approach of each party the mother half rose 
from her chair, her lips apart as she strained to hear 
the shout of joy that should proclaim her boy found. 
She would be at the window by the time the party 
reached the Whitla home. But as they passed by 
silently, too tired to glance more than casually at the 


40 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


lamp burning in the front window, she walked slowly 
back to her chair to wait as before. 

Presently the first dawn paled the east. The stars 
fled before the day. The darkness faded, turned gray. 
Mrs. Whitla removed the lamp from the window. Day 
had come. 

And when the advancing sun threw scarlet bands 
across the sky the first man-hunter arrived. 

One after another the detectives came. Every train, 
every electric car was bringing them. Soon the Whitla 
house was full. They overflowed to the hotels. The 
Perkins agency was throwing its whole force into the 
search. 

The sunshine and the arrival of the trained detec¬ 
tives brought hope to the suffering family. Despair 
vanished with the darkness. 

The hunters at once held a conference at the Whitla 
home. Then they sought for clues. 

From the first they were baffled. They could only 
trace the abductors a short distance. Then, so cleverly 
had the trail been covered, all scent was lost. 

Again and again Wesley Sloss, the janitor; Mrs. 
Lewis, the teacher, and others who knew anything of 
the stealing, were queried. But nothing was learned 
more than had been told to Buhl the preceding day. 

One hunter came upon the postman who had delivered 
the ransom letter to Mrs. Whitla. He remembered 
where he took up the letter—from a mail box near the 
school. The detectives made the deduction that the 
kidnapers had stopped their horse while Billy could ad¬ 
dress the letter. Then the letter had been placed in 
the mail box and the abductors hurried away. 


THE HUNT BEGINS. 


41 


The question was asked why the letter had been ad¬ 
dressed in Billy’s handwriting, while the contents had 
been printed by another hand. The first conclusion 
was that the kidnapers sought to avoid making the letter 
look suspicious by printing the address in a disguised 
hand. It was simpler to have Billy address it. 

But it was Mrs. Whitla who probably reached the 
correct conclusion. 

“Why,” she said, “they had Billy address it to show 
us they are the right ones. I have no doubt other 
criminals will try to get the ransom money, by claiming 
they are the kidnapers. 

“But the real ones can have Billy address the letter 
and so identify themselves. I know Billy’s handwriting. 
Nobody could deceive me in that.” 

It was still early in the morning when the first clue 
as to the direction taken by the abductors was found. 

The horse and buggy which had stood for a few 
minutes before the East Ward school house was found 
at Warren, Ohio, a city twenty miles west of Sharon. 

Like a pack of hounds in full cry the hunters were 
off to Warren, only a small detachment remaining at 
Sharon to guide the searchers. 

It indeed proved to be the very buggy used to carry 
Billy away. Frank Loveless, Warren liveryman, iden¬ 
tified it as his rig. He had rented it to a man who said 
he was a collector, taking bills through the country. 

Did Loveless remember what the collector looked 
like? 

He did. The man was medium height, with a florid 
face and had square, stocky shoulders. He also had a 
rather queer looking mustache. 


42 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


A description that tallied exactly with that given by 
Janitor SlossI 

The horse was found wandering about the streets, 
dragging the empty buggy. Those who found it saw 
how the abductors had concealed Billy while driving 
through the country. 

Both side curtains were up. The front rain curtain 
was fastened up on one side. The other side was un¬ 
fastened, left that way when those in the rig had 
abandoned it. 

With the curtains screening the interior of the rig 
and with Billy, muffled in blankets, crouching in a little 
ball far back oh the seat, the abductors were enabled to 
drive through the populous country roads in broad day¬ 
light without showing their little victim. 

An early theory had been that the abductors were 
members of the dread Black Hand society, an organiza¬ 
tion of desperate Italian blackmailers. 

But the cleverness which the kidnapers had shown 
in plotting the crime so as to leave the fewest possible 
traces was far superior to that ever shown by the Black 
Hand in this country. The Black Hand theory was 
soon abandoned. 

The detectives soon realized they were dealing with 
the craftiest, crudest crooks that American education, 
turned to base uses, could produce. The wits of the 
kidnapers more than overbalanced the combined minds 
of the shrewdest detectives in the land. 

It was Whitla himself who realized this first. He 
saw the futility of dealing double with foes of the men¬ 
tal calibre of Billy’s abductors. He knew that it would 


THE HUNT BEGINS. 


43 


be impossible both to pursue the criminals and recover 
the child. It had to be one or the other, and there was 
no thought of a choice between the two alternatives by 
the grief stricken father. 

He begged that the pursuit be called off. He made a 
public appeal to the police not to make efforts against 
the criminals until Billy should be restored to him. 

“The ransom—$10,000—it is nothing compared to 
getting back my boy,” he pleaded. “I am ready to do 
my part. And when I say I will make no attempt to 
catch the kidnapers I expect to keep my word.” 

But his pleadings fell upon deaf ears so far as city 
police departments were concerned. 

“We’ll get the boy and the criminals both,” was the 
statement given out by the police of many cities. “In 
this modern day they can’t get the ransom, return Billy 
and make their escape. It is impossible.” 

Whitla’s private detectives, however, soon desisted 
making further search, and contented themselves by 
taking positions through the suspected territory, ready 
to close in upon the abductors the minute Billy should be 
returned. 

Warren soon gave up another clue. A barber there 
had shaved a stranger early Thursday evening. He 
remembered that he tried to strike up a conversation 
with his customer. But in vain. The man in the chair 
answered questions shortly, in monosyllables. His 
answers, however, showed him to be a man of American 
birth. 

The barber described the man exactly as had Sloss 
and Loveless—with this one exception. 


44 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


The man who was shaved had no mustache. 

This confirmed the early supposition that the abductor 
was disguised. The fresh intelligence was wired over 
the land as an additional description of the mysterious 
criminal. 

Toward noon the first real word from the kidnapers 
was had. A letter again addressed by Billy in indelible 
pencil, reached the Whitla house. The father’s nerv¬ 
ously trembling fingers tore it open. In substance the 
letter read: 

“We have seen your advertisement and conclude you 
mean to play square. Be ready to act upon further in¬ 
structions.” 

The letter was a great disappointment to Whitla. 

He had expected the letter would contain the arrange¬ 
ments for the delivery of the $10,000 ransom. Instead 
it tortured his already raw nerves by bidding him wait 
longer. 

The letter, however, gave the police their first inkling 
as to the general whereabouts of the abductors. It nar¬ 
rowed the hunting ground. For this was the deduction: 

If the kidnapers saw the advertisement in time to 
answer it through the mails so that Whitla could get 
their answer before noon Friday, they must have seen it 
in a paper published Thursday evening. 

The only evening paper which contained the adver¬ 
tisement Thursday was the Cleveland Press. There¬ 
fore the kidnapers must be near or in Cleveland. 

That was something to work on. The envelope of 
the letter was hurried to Cleveland. And before night a 



Automobiles Starting on the Search for Billy in the Cleveland (Ohio) Suburbs 























Where Billy - sat, Looking From Mis Prison Window 















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Was the Undoing of His Captors 





































THE HUNT BEGINS. 


45 


i 

city carrier had identified it as a letter he took from a 
mail box at the corner of Payne Avenue and East 
Thirtieth Street in Cleveland. 

The police knew then that the crime scene would be 
laid in Cleveland. 

The receipt of the letter, the contracting of the hunt¬ 
ing lines about the kidnapers, the broken-hearted 
mother, the distracted father stirred the nation as no 
other crime, not even excepting the famous Charlie 
Ross case, had ever done. The eyes of the country were 
upon Sharon and the Whitla home. 

Much the same scenes the preceding evening had 
witnessed in Sharon were enacted again on the streets 
of the great American cities. People gathered in groups 
to discuss the crime and venture their opinions. Each 
fresh development excited the interest to a fever heat. 

Politics and business affairs were forgotten. The 
preparations of the ex-president for an African hunting 
trip passed without notice. There was only one thing 
talked about. 

“Will Billy Whitla be returned? Will they ever 
catch the kidnapers ? Is it possible for them to effect a 
safe delivery of the ransom ?” 

And the general opinion was pessimistic. 

For a vague fear had begun to sweep the country. 
The fear that the kidnapers might only have been 
clever in the single act of stealing the boy. That they 
might be amateurs driven to desperate means to get 
money. That finding the pursuit more relentless than 
they had anticipated, they might kill Billy in cold blood 


4 6 THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 

to effect their escape without incumbrance or without 
the danger of being identified by the boy if caught. 

It was regarded as an equal chance whether the suf¬ 
fering parents would ever see their baby again. 

And the nation came to this conclusion with something 
that resembled a groan. 

For here was a common terror—the fear of the child 
stealer. Every mother prayed for Mrs. Whitla, for, 
should the kidnaping of Billy prove successful, the safety 
of every home was menaced. 

Child stealing is the most cruel of crimes. It is a 
trespass upon that most sacred of institutions, the home 
life. And in that it seeks to wring its gain from bleed¬ 
ing home love it is the most despicable of crimes. 

A million American mothers thought of these things 
that Friday night as they gazed with maternal anxiety 
upon tired little eyes closed in sleep. A million mothers 
went to look again at the tousled heads upon small pil¬ 
lows, and a new, troubled thought came into their gentle 
minds. And it was then the million made Mrs. Whitla’s 
anxiety their own. 

The nation, too, made the Whitlas’ concern its own. 
The wheels of the Pennsylvania legislature turned rapid¬ 
ly and offered a $15,000 reward for the recovery of 
Billy and the capture of the kidnapers. Newspapers, 
reflecting the national life, offered other great rewards. 
These, with the amounts to be paid by Billy’s father and 
uncle brought the total reward close to $30,000—all on 
account of one little boy who went to school one day 
and didn’t return. 

Yet nobody considered $30,000 an excessive amount. 


THE HUNT BEGINS. 


47 


Mrs. Whitla herself bore up well under the strain all 
day Friday. There was an hour in the morning, how¬ 
ever, when the women who were staying by her side had 
difficulty in soothing her grief. 

That was when they brought Billy’s riderless bicycle 
back from school. 

At the sight of the ownerless machine, brought back 
by one of the “fellers”—Billy’s playmates—the mother 
could no longer restrain her sorrow. 

She bowed her head on her arms, while silent, shud¬ 
dering sobs shook her frail body. 

“Oh, my lost baby!” she cried in her grief. 

Presently they comforted her. She grew more cheer¬ 
ful as the day advanced. 

But when darkness fell there came a persistent rumor 
from Cleveland. It was kept from the mother’s ears. 

“Billy has been traced down,” was the word. “The 
police have made an arrest and are about ready to re¬ 
cover the boy.” 

At first the report was given little credence at the 
Whitla house. But as the report was confirmed by every 
message from Cleveland, the watchers began to think 
that perhaps the hunt was over and that great joy was 
in store for the sorrowing mother. 

A long distance telephone message, coming in the mid¬ 
dle of the evening, determined Buhl to start for Cleve¬ 
land. 

“The boy has been located,” declared the confident 
voice over the wire. “There’s no doubt about it. Half 
a dozen men say they saw him in the Euclid Hotel late 


48 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


on the night of the kidnaping. They have the man who 
was with him and are ‘sweating* him now at the police 
station, trying to make him divulge Billy’s place of hid¬ 
ing.” 

Buhl made ready to take a train. 

“Don’t tell Mrs. Whitla until I report to you,” he 
cautioned the watchers. “She couldn’t stand a disap¬ 
pointment now.” 

“When I have seen Billy with my own eyes, then you 
can tell her.” 

And he left for the station, glancing back once to see 
the light that burned in a front window. 


CHAPTER VI. 

THE MYSTERIOUS LETTER . 

The Game Is Opened—The Kidnapers Show Their 
Hand. 

TT was not Billy who had been seen in the Euclid 
^ Hotel in Cleveland. 

For a time the Cleveland police were positive they 
were on the right trail. 

A man led a child through the hotel lobby late Thurs¬ 
day night. In every way the boy tallied with the de¬ 
scription of Billy Whitla. So positive was the hotel 
clerk that it was Billy himself, and others who saw the 
pair were so certain it was the kidnaper and his victim, 
that a purse of $1,000 was made up to bet that the boy 
who passed through the lobby was the boy the whole 
country we was seeking. 

It was not. Yet the police themselves were deceived. 

Detectives finally located the man who had led the 
boy through the lobby. When the man was taken to 
the police station he refused point blank to reveal the 
identity of the boy he had in his charge Thursday night. 
Then the police were certain, and Buhl was informed 
of the news at Sharon. 

But by the time Buhl reached Cleveland, several 
hours later, the police confidence was shaken. The sus¬ 
pect, informed of the gravity of the situation, confessed 
what he had been doing Thursday night. 

His confession revealed, bared one of those strange 
coincidences that occasionally rise up to baffle the shrewd¬ 
est investigators. 


50 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


For the boy, who looked, talked and acted like Billy 
Whitla, was actually, in a sense, being kidnaped him¬ 
self when he passed through the Euclid Hotel lobby in 
company with the prisoner Thursday night. 

It was one of those “kidnapings” that occur some¬ 
times when a man and wife decide to go their separate 
ways through life. In this case a father had hired the 
prisoner to take the boy from his mother and conduct 
him to a hiding place. The man had agreed to meet the 
father at the Euclid Hotel and turn the boy over to him. 
This he did, he said. 

The prisoner said he could not reveal the boy’s hiding 
place because he did not know it. The father had taken 
his son there alone, he said. 

“Where is the boy’s father?” the police asked. 

“I don’t know where he lives,” replied the suspect. 
“He moved recently. I know where he works, though, 
and can take you there tomorrow morning and have him 
vouch for what I tell you.” 

No amount of questioning could shake the man’s 
story. 

Buhl arrived somewhat after midnight Friday. He 
went at once to the police station. After a few ques¬ 
tions asked the prisoner he said he was satisfied the 
man’s story was correct. Then the suspect was released 
and Buhl went to the hotel to try to sleep. 

The man suspected by the police would not let the 
case rest there. Of his own free will he remained at the 
police station the rest of the night. Early in the morn¬ 
ing he went to the father of the boy he had taken to 
the hotel. The pair of them then sought out Buhl and 
offered to take him to the house where the Cleveland 
boy was hidden. 


THE MYSTERIOUS LETTER. 


51 


“I believe what you tell me,” said Buhl. “But to 
satisfy myself entirely I will go with you. I don’t want 
to neglect the smallest detail in this search.” 

When Buhl saw the Cleveland boy he exclaimed aloud 
at the resemblance to Billy. 

“Remarkable, remarkable,” he repeated. “But it 
isn’t Billy.” 

The crumbling of this line of investigation apparently 
left the search more at sea than at any moment since 
Billy was stolen. In contrast with the hopes that so 
lately had been aroused the hunt seemed demoralized. 

But the pursuit was baffled only for a few hours. 
About noon, Saturday, came the most startling develop¬ 
ment since the search began. 

Billy was traced to Ashtabula—40 miles north of 
Warren on the shore of Lake Erie. 

The news made a new search center. The detectives 
swarmed into the ore port. The Pennsylvania Cossacks 
tried to make the trip, but were stopped at the Ohio 
boundary by the authorities. State law prevents an armed 
military force from another state entering its borders. 

The news established another fact. Billy had been 
led away by a single abductor. 

The child stealer and his little victim had been ob¬ 
served on a train that ran from Warren to Ashtabula 
late Thursday afternoon. 

It was before news of the kidnaping had been given 
wide circulation. Billy sat three seats in front of a man 
described exactly as others had described the kidnaper. 

Trainmen and passengers tried to engage the bright¬ 
eyed little fellow in conversation. He looked lonesome, 
sitting all by himself. 

Men spoke to him. But at each advance the boy 
glanced around at the man behind him and closed his lips 


52 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


tightly. The man behind apparently affected not to 
know the boy. But those on the train unconsciously 
drew the inference the two were traveling together. 

Naturally those who observed the couple thought no 
more of it at the time. But by Saturday, when, every citi¬ 
zen considered himself deputized to search for Billy, 
someone remembered about the man and the boy on the 
train. He told his suspicions to the detectives. 

Several were found who remembered the pair on the 
train. Each independent description given of the boy 
passenger was so good that Whitla, hearing the news at 
Sharon, exclaimed: 

“That’s Billy. That’s my boy. The description fits 
exactly.” 

There could be no doubt after that. So the hunt 
closed in upon Ashtabula. The letter from the kid¬ 
napers had been mailed from Cleveland. That made 
the police certain two persons were in the blackmailing 
plot. 

Envelopes, addressed to his father by Billy, had prob¬ 
ably been forwarded to the confederate in Cleveland, 
who would use them in corresponding with Whitla. 
Meanwhile the man who abducted the boy would be 
securely hidden in Ashtabula. By dividing their field 
of operation the criminals would confuse the search. 

That, at any rate, was the police theory. Officers 
swarmed into Ashtabula to search every house in the 
city if necessary. 

* * * * * * 

Saturday had dawned as another dreary day at the 
Whitla home. 

The father, white faced and haggard, was still main¬ 
taining his sleepless vigil. Mrs. Whitla had managed 
to get a short sleep, troubled with many dreams. 


THE MYSTERIOUS LETTER. 


53 


The hope that Buhl might be recovering Billy on his 
trip to Cleveland had kept Whitla wakeful. But his 
wife’s despair, unbroken by hope, had worn out her 
physical endurance, and nature had asserted itself. 

Then came the news that stifled Whitla’s hope that 
his boy might be found in Cleveland. Buhl tele¬ 
phoned his conviction that the boy seen in the Euclid 
Hotel was not Billy. 

Buhl’s wisdom in keeping from Mrs. Whitla the first 
report that Billy was found was then made apparent. 
For even Whitla, the man, took the shattering of his 
hopes hardly. 

At first the disappointing news from Cleveland did 
not show in his face. He took the tidings almost stolidly. 
The past experience-crammed hours, that had seemed 
like days to him, had been filled with bitter disappoint¬ 
ments and grief. Another hope blasted apparently did 
not add much weight to the burden of sorrow already 
upon his head. 

But the news told upon him in another way. Hope 
had been lending him false strength. And when that 
hope went, his strength departed with it. 

He went into a nervous collapse, and for many min¬ 
utes could not control himself. His hands shook. He 
gave way to his grief. Gradually, as friends encouraged 
him to fresh efforts, his self-control came back. 

But over his mind had crept the haunting fear his 
boy was lost forever. He could not shake it off. 

The post office authorities had arranged to deliver 
Whitla’s mail to him privately. Letters from all over 
the country, offering advice and sympathy were pouring 
in. There were also letters from blackmailers who 
claimed to be the kidnapers, directing him how he 
should pay them the ransom. 


54 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


But none of these fraudulent letters were addressed 
by Billy. And Whitla had come to realize that Billy’s 
captors would send all their letters addressed as the first 
two had been. 

After the late morning mail delivery those in the 
house observed a marked change in Whitla’s manner. 
His step seemed to have taken on vigor. His nerves 
were still shaken, but he seemed a man able to take 
charge of the discouraging situation. 

Mrs. Whitla, too, grew more cheerful. Something 
had happened that was raising their spirits. What that 
thing was Whitla did not divulge. 

But, from some unknown source, the rumor spread 
among the detectives that Whitla had received a third 
letter from the true kidnapers. 

Whitla maintained his secrecy concerning his mail 
and those about him did not attempt to learn his secret. 

But presently there came to be a good understanding 
among the detectives that the letter directed Whitla 
to stand ready to deliver the ransom at Ashtabula. This 
report, combined with the clue which had led the police 
search to Ashtabula, made the detectives believe that 
at last the abductors were showing their hand. 

The game was now opened, those about Whitla be¬ 
lieved. The kidnapers had given specific instructions. 

Whitla made a sudden trip to the business portion of 
Sharon. This confirmed the watchers’ suspicions. They 
concluded he went to get the $10,000 demanded. Rest¬ 
lessly they prepared to move their base of operations 
quickly. 

Important developments were expected for Saturday 
night. 


CHAPTER VII 


THE ARRIVAL OF “G. BV 

“I'm Serving Justice Now. Number the Bills or You 
Don’t Go At All. 

B Y Saturday afternoon the nation was beginning to 
lose hope that Billy Whitla ever would be returned. 
“Something has gone wrong with the plans of the 
kidnapers,” was the comment in street corner groups dis¬ 
cussing the situation. 

“They’ll never get him now. It’s too late.” 

“To be successful the abductors must get the money 
within a very few hours after the stealing.” 

“If they happen to be amateur crooks, they will prob¬ 
ably get scared and kill the boy in order to escape with¬ 
out incumbrance.” 

The public based its deductions upon the Charlie Ross 
and Eddie Cudahy cases—the two great kidnapings of 
the past. They failed to ransom Charlie Ross within 
a few hours and he was never seen again. 

The abductors of Eddie Cudahy had the ransom, and 
the boy was back in his father’s house within eighteen 
hours. 

But Saturday afternoon—more than two days since 
the abduction—and no Billy! 

“Too late now. It will always be a mystery,” was 
the popular conclusion. 


5 6 THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 

Whitla had somewhat recovered from his nervous 
spell of the forenoon. For a while it had seemed the 
strain would be more than he could bear and he col¬ 
lapsed completely. 

But as the afternoon wore on he recovered his self- 
possession by degrees. Again he was pacing the floor, 
his face haggard from worry and loss of sleep. 

Apparently his resolution to keep the contents of the 
kidnapers’ second letter secret was being shaken. 

That such a letter had been received the group of 
detectives stationed in the house was certain. The 
secrecy Whitla threw about his mail, the obscure ways 
in which he had ordered it delivered to him by the post- 
office, was not enough to conceal from the shrewd eyes 
watching him the fact that some new development had 
occurred. Anticipation seemed to be buoying up his 
spirits, so lately fallen. 

A terse question now and then and the secret was out. 

Yes, he had received a letter. From the kidnapers. 
Instructions how to pay the ransom. Did he intend to 
follow the instructions? To the smallest detail. 

And bit by bit Whitla told them the letter was post¬ 
marked “Cleveland;” that it demanded $10,000 in bills; 
that he must go by a specified route at a specified time 
to Ashtabula, where at the Smith Hotel a letter would 
reach him giving further instructions. 

“What time do you start, Mr. Whitla?” 

“Early this evening. I will be watched the whole 
time, the letter informs me. I must take the train men¬ 
tioned in the letter and follow instructions minutely, or 


THE ARRIVAL OF “G. B. 


57 


they will consider I am not acting in good faith. Clerks 
are putting up the money in bundles for me now at the 
bank.” 

The detectives talked in low tones while Whitla 
paced the floor. His nervousness seemed to increase 
as it drew near the time when he should play his part 
in the final scene of the drama and receive back his 
beloved boy. Once he spoke to the detectives. 

“I don’t need to mention, gentlemen, that what I 
have told you is in strict confidence. You, of course, 
will make no attempt to follow me, or in any way act 
contrary to the orders contained in the letter. You are 
to do nothing until my boy is back. That is the under¬ 
standing I have with your chief in Pittsburg. After 
Billy is returned, then, of course, you may join in the 
hunt.” 

* * * * * * * 

But down in Pittsburg there was a man who was 
tired—very tired. He was tired of biting his nails, 
waiting for news of developments in the case. He was 
tired of the nervous waits between telegrams that re¬ 
ported but little progress. 

He was a grizzled veteran, with silvered hair and a 
white, scraggly mustache. A pair of keen gray eyes 
were buried under heavy, white tufts of brows. He 
was G. B. Perkins, head of the detective agency in 
charge of the case, called simply “G. B.” by his men. 

“G. B.” wasn’t satisfied with the progress the case 
was making. He had two hundred men scattered over 
the affected territory, yet, so far as he could judge, the 


58 THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 

case was little clearer than it had been the minute it had 
been placed in his hands on Thursday. 

Perhaps he was catching some of the contagion of 
the popular idea that Billy never would return. At any 
rate the nervous strain of waiting in Pittsburg for news 
was too much for him. He threw some things into a 
grip and started for Sharon. 

At Youngstown, Ohio, a telegram in cipher reached 
him, telling him of Whitla’s intention to start for Ash¬ 
tabula that evening. 

The old detective took the first electric car for Sharon 
that left Youngstown. 

In Billy’s home town Perkins was driven hurriedly 
to the Whitla home. He was admitted quietly. Inside 
he found Whitla, about ready to leave for the train. 

To Perkins’ questions Whitla told of the letter from 
the kidnapers. 

“I suppose everything is all right,” said Perkins. 
“When do you start?” 

“Immediately,” replied Whitla. “I’m all ready now. 
The money’s in there,” indicating a dress suit case. 

“You’ll stay here, I suppose?” added Whitla, whose 
spirits were better than they had been at any time since 
the boy was taken. 

“We may,” replied “G. B.” noncommittally. “At 
any rate we won’t follow you.” 

“I might as well be starting for the train then,” said 
Whitla. He retired for a few minutes to bid good-bye 
to his wife and give her final encouragement. 


THE ARRIVAL OF G. B. 


59 


She, too, had grown quite cheerful since the receipt of 
the letter which opened ngotiations for the return of her 
baby. The whole household had taken on an air of an¬ 
ticipation. It seemed the beginning of the end of the 
whole wretched affair. In a few hours at the most and 
Billy would be home—that was the feeling in the 
Whitla house. 

During Whitla’s absence from the room Perkins had 
seized the opportunity to question the men regarding the 
trip to Ashtabula. “G. B.’s” forehead knitted as his 
brain grasped the trip in detail. In his mind’s eye he 
was seeing Whitla in Ashtabula, seeing him get the sec¬ 
ond letter at the Smith hotel, and, finally, guessing in 
what manner and place the ransom would be delivered. 

The ransom! The wrinkles between “G. B.’s” eyes 
deepened as if he were mentally impressing upon him¬ 
self a new thought as Whitla returned for his suit case. 

“I suppose of course you have taken the trouble to 
identify the money?” said Perkins. 

“Identify?” faltered the lawyer. “What do you 
mean—identify?” 

“The numbers on the bills,” explained Perkins, im¬ 
patiently. “Of course you took a record of them?” 

“I never thought of that,” confessed Whitla. 

“The thing was perfectly obvious. If they were f.ools 
enough to ask for the money in bills, we are certainly 
smart enough to take advantage of their mistake and 
take the identity of the bills. No criminal in America 
has ever beaten the game when the numbers of the bills 
have been known. In asking for bills the kidnapers of 
your son sealed their fate. Sooner or later they will be 


6o 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


captured after they get the money. And the time won’t 
be longer than a year.” 

“I’m sorry,” said Whitla. “I should have thought of 
that. But it’s too late now.” 

“Why is it too late?” demanded Perkins, bluntly. 
“Isn’t there another train?” 

“There’s a later train that will get him to Ashtabula 
in time,” volunteered one of the agency men, “but it 
goes by another route.” 

“You’ll have to take that then,” said Perkins. “We 
will get a bunch of bank clerks and start—” 

“I couldn’t consider it for a moment,” interrupted 
Whitla. “The train I am to take is being watched. I 
must fulfill my part to the letter. So I cannot wait.” 

“You must,” snapped Perkins. “You must not throw 
away this single chance to capture them.” 

“Must?” exclaimed Whitla. “That’s a strong word. 
This matter is in my hands tonight. Let me pass—” 

But Perkins had barred the door with his body. 

“Not until the numbers on those bills are taken.” 

“Who do you talk to like that?” demanded Whitla. 
“I must go.” Perkins made no show of moving. “Oh, 
it is easy for you to talk of delay,” cried the anguished 
father. “But hie—it is my boy—my baby—I may 
never see him again. I don’t care about the kidnapers. 
I only want him. Tonight is—might have been my 
chance. They’ll know every move I make. And if I 
don’t act according to their instructions everything will 
be lost. You must—you’ve got to see it in that light 
and let me go, be the bills identified or not.” 



Sink in Billy’s Prison, Where He Was Hidden Whenever 
Capture Was Near 





















































































































































THE ARRIVAL OF “G. B.” 6 1 

“Nonsense,” replied the detective, obdurately. “The 
later train will do just as well. Their threat to watch 
you is—only a threat—something to frighten you. I 
don’t believe they will watch. They’ve only asked for 
ten thousand. You can depend upon it that there are 
not many in the plot—not enough to keep a shadow up¬ 
on you.” 

“Stop!” cried the desperate father. “I’ll not have 
you over-riding my will in this fashion. You should 
remember that in this case you are employed and I am 
your employer.” 

The flinty defiance hurled by Whitla struck fire on the 
blue steel of the old detective’s eyes. His body stiffened. 

“At present I am serving justice,” he cried, passion¬ 
ately. “You’ll stay until those bills are listed or, by 
heaven, you’ll not go at all.” 

The nerve wracked father gazed at the relentless 
face between him and the door. Then he sank to a 
chair. 

“Oh, you are hounding me to death,” he exclaimed. 
“You and your men—and reporters. Why can’t you 
let me alone—let me get my boy—” The man bowed 
his head upon his hands. 

Whether in the mind of “G. B.” there was sympathy 
for the distracted father, his grizzled face did not show 
it at any rate. Now he was no longer the employe. He 
was the man-hunter, smelling his prey—the veteran of 
many a pursuit scientifically setting his traps. When he 
spoke it was in a quiet tone. 


62 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


“Take a machine and bring all the bank clerks you 
can find to the house,” he ordered one of his men. 
“Rush them here.” 

* * * * * * 

The force of clerks made short work of tabulating 
the descriptions of the bills. The while they worked 
Whitla again paced the room in ominous silence. When 
the work was completed he packed the money into his 
grip and hastened to the later train without a parting 
word. When he had left Perkins turned to his men. 

“One of you to follow him. The rest of us to Cleve¬ 
land to wait. The moment the boy comes back word is 
to be wired to us. We’ll come down in a hurry—a 
special car full of us. We’ll close in on them before 
they have time to think. They won’t have a chance.” 


CHAPTER VIII. 


THE GOOD FAITH OF WHITLA . 

The Father Goes to the Rendezvous in Spite of the 
Interference of Meddlers . 

MAN with fast whitening - hair and a thin, dis- 



tinguished face, sat in an inconspicuous seat on an 
early evening train traveling from Youngstown, Ohio, 
to Ashtabula early Saturday evening. 

The man was J. P. Whitla, father of kidnaped 
Billy, and, for the moment, the most conspicuous man in 
America. Yet few, if any, of hi's fellow passengers 
knew his name, so unobtrusive was his presence. 

He sat well over in his seat, his features shadowed by 
the brim of the soft hat he wore. For it was the man’s 
part not to let his presence aboard the train be known. 

He was traveling under instructions from the kidnap¬ 
ers themselves. True, he was not on the train desig¬ 
nated by the criminals, owing to the unforeseen delay 
in recording the numbers on the bills of the ransom 
money—a procedure demanded by the detectives be¬ 
fore they would allow Whitla to leave Sharon. 

But already the father was beginning to share the 
conviction of the detectives that the warning contained 
in the letter that even the train was being watched was 
but a ruse on the part of the kidnapers to give the hunt¬ 
ers an exaggerated impression as to the number of those 
implicated in the abduction plot. 


64 THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 

Hope once more was stimulating the physical strength 
of Whitla. His heart began to sing in rhythm with 
the whirring wheels beneath him. He was on his way 
to ransom his boy. The money—$10,000 in five, ten 
and twenty-dollar bills, wrapped in packages—the very 
money that would buy Billy’s liberty in the suit case 
that reposed on the seat beside the lawyer. Soon—that 
very night, perhaps—he would clasp his boy again in 
his arms. 

After the stress of the last few terrible days such joy 
seemed greater than he could bear. At the very thought 
his heart throbbed alarmingly in his breast. The joy of 
anticipating that first, reunited embrace, when a pair of 
chubby arms should entwine his neck and a little, piping 
voice should cry: “Oh, papa, I’m so glad you found 
me!”—the very thought of it made the air of the car 
seem stifling. 

The physical endurance of Whitla was remarkable. 
Scarcely had he slept at all since that hideous afternoon 
when the news reached him that Billy had been stolen. 
In addition his weary brain had been tortured with hours 
and days of the cruelest anxiety that can come to a man. 
Any man with less will power than Whitla would have 
fainted under the weight of trouble. 

But Whitla knew that he must keep up. The very 
life of his baby depended upon his ability to keep phys¬ 
ically fit. The kidnapers would not deal with any other 
than the father. Should he fail all would be lost. 

There were times, indeed, when it seemed despair 
must crush even his indomitable spirit. But at those 
very moments, when the situation was blackest, some¬ 
thing would occur to arouse hope once more, And again 
his fainting strength would revive. 


THE GOOD FAITH OF WHITLA. 


65 


There was something Whitla drew from his pocket 
and read from time to time as the train sped toward Ash¬ 
tabula. And as he read he smiled tenderly. For he was 
reading a letter from Billy. 

He had not told the detectives of this letter. It was 
contained in the same envelope that brought the in¬ 
structions to proceed to Ashtabula. Only Mrs. Whitla 
had been shown the letter from Billy. 

The two had read it and had received comfort. Both 
had decided that Whitla should carry it with him to 
Ashtabula to give him courage to meet the kidnapers 
face to face if necessary. 

Again Whitla drew forth the note, and read: 

“Dear Papa: Tell mama not to worry. I will be 
home with her tomorrow. I am in a house that has 
many trees around it. I am well now. 

“Your loving son, 
“Billy.” 

The father knew every letter of the note had been 
written by his son, and the knowledge that the little 
boy was still unharmed brought courage to him. Whitla 
could imagine what toil it had been for the little, chubby 
hand to trace even so short a note. He knew from the 
letter how much the brave little chap was longing to 
see his dear ones all again. 

The train drew into the Ashtabula station. Whitla 
was first to reach the car door. He was late. The de¬ 
lay in leaving Sharon barely gave him time to reach Ash¬ 
tabula and fulfill his duty as outlined in the kidnapers’ 
letter. Fie walked swiftly to the Smith hotel. 


66 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


“Is there a letter here for me?” he demanded of the 
clerk. “For C. A. White?”—the name the kidnapers 
told Whitla to use. 

“Why—why—I didn’t suppose—” stammered the 
clerk. 

“What? Isn’t it here?” cried Whitla, startled. 

“Are you C. A. White?” gasped the clerk, sparring 
for time. 

“Yes,” snapped Whitla, whose nerves were too raw 
to bear petty annoyances calmly. “A letter. Where 
is it?” 

“Here it is,” responded the clerk meekly, handing an 
envelope across the desk. 

Whitla gazed at it for a moment in bewilderment. 

“Why—somebody’s been tampering with it—it’s 
been opened.” 

“Yes, Mr. White,” began the clerk. “All a mis¬ 
take, of course. But accidentally—you see, we have 
no regular customers and I thought I’d better see, and 
—and—” 

“What?” The word came sharp as a pistol shot. 

“I opened it,” confessed the clerk, thoroughly cowed 
by Whitla’s terrible manner. 

The father groaned. 

“You opened it!” he repeated. “You opened it! 
Oh! If you have interfered—if this has upset the 
plans, you’ll rue this day—” 

Whitla had drawn forth the contents of the letter. 
He read. The clerk watched him, fascinated. This 
was the message in substance: 


THE GOOD FAITH OF WHITLA. 


67 


“Take the money to Flatiron Park and leave it under 
the butt end of the cannon there. Do this between 
eight and nine o’clock. Then return to Smith’s Hotel. 
You will receive our answer between one and two 
o’clock in the morning. 

“Go to the park alone. If you are shadowed, don’t 
leave any money, for it won’t be taken. After you 
have left the money, go back to the hotel immediately 
and you will get your boy. 

“If we don’t take the money you will know that we 
have changed the plan.” 

The luckless clerk, observing the ghastly face, the 
tensely drawn lips of the reader, was convinced he was 
dealing with a madman. He started to edge away. 
Those in the lobby of the hotel, spell bound by the dra¬ 
matic scene they were witnessing, made no effort to aid 
the clerk. The young man had nearly reached a point 
where flight was possible when— 

“Stop !” cried Whitla. “Here! tell me exactly what 
you did!” 

The clerk felt a pair of blazing eyes upon him. He 
moistened his lips with his tongue. 

“I read it,” he repeated in a sullen voice. 

“What did you do then?” urged Whitla, relent¬ 
lessly. 

“I told the police.” 

“Oh, criminal!” groaned Whitla. “What did 
they do?” 

“I told them the letter had been brought in by two 
boys. They found the boys. The boys said a strange 
man had given them the letter to leave here for you. 


68 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


The police said they would watch the cannon. They 
are watching it now.” 

Whitla turned away, cut to his soul with chagrin. 
There was but one thing to do. It was close to nine 
o’clock. He would deliver the money anyhow. 
It was all he could do. His benumbed brain refused 
to plan any more. 

Sick with disappointment he sought the park. He 
found the cannon as the letter had said he would. He 
placed the money in the appointed spot. He returned 
to the hotel. 

Mechanically he forced his brain to receive this lat¬ 
est shock. Curious eyes watched him. Men came to 
the hotel to gaze at him for a moment, then departed 
on tiptoe as at a funeral. Some saw the grotesque lines 
the torture was drawing upon that pallid face and 
turned away in tremulous pity. For that face was one 
not good to look upon. Those watching him spoke in 
whispers. But he did not heed them. 

Crushed, too dazed to realize his hurt, his sheer will 
kept him conscious. And so he waited, waited, 
waited— 


CHAPTER IX. 


WAITING. 

“They’ve Killed the Last Chance He Will Ever 
Have to Find His Boy!” 



RUE to his word, G. B. Perkins took his force of 


detectives to Cleveland shortly after Whitla had 
departed with his money to ransom his little son at 
Ashtabula. 

One man, Detective McCain, had been sent on to 
shadow Whitla. 

The rest waited for an early evening train to 
Cleveland. 

The ideal man hunter seldom expresses his emo¬ 
tions by word or look. In good luck or adversity his 
demeanor remains the same—a nonchalant acceptance 
of things as they come. 

And so, while the spirits of the officers were higher 
than they had been at any time since Billy was stolen, 
they showed little of their elation on the train. 

A silent body of men, they sat together in pairs and 
threes. Some occupied the smoker, reading the con¬ 
jectures of the newspapers as the outcome of the 
case. Others tried to catch a measure of sleep, propping 
themselves up uncomfortably on the seats, for they ex¬ 
pected hours of wakeful toil were ahead. 

Perkins sat in a rear coach with his assistant, T. S. 
Ward, of Philadelphia, brought on as an expert advisor 


70 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


in the case. One or two other detectives made up a 
group that conversed in tones too low to be heard above 
the roar of the train. 

As the train neared Cleveland “G. B.” began to talk 
of the business in hand. He was getting near the hunt¬ 
ing ground. 

“If Whitla’s part goes through, we’ve got them like 
rats in a trap,” he said confidently. “I don’t see how 
they can get through our net. 

“As soon as the boy is safe in his father’s arms, we’ll 
put an embargo upon Ashtabula that even legitimate 
travelers can’t get through. McCain can enlist the 
Ashtabula police in the work and keep the town block¬ 
aded until we can get there in a special car. Then 
we’ll go through the town with a rake. We’re sure to 
get them.” 

His confidence in the success of the program mapped 
out was caught up by the others. The party reached 
Cleveland about midnight. They went at once to the 
Hollenden Hotel and engaged a suite of rooms. There 
they stayed in hiding. 

The co-operation of the Mintz Detective Agency, of 
Cleveland, was secured. Presently the detectives of 
this agency began to arrive at the hotel one by one, until 
the suite was crowed with the hunters. 

Briefly, Perkins described to the others his plan for 
capturing the kidnapers. Then the talk drifted into 
other channels, never, however, straying far from the 
dramatic crime in which they were so intently interested. 

The veteran “G. B.” who resembled a clergyman 
more than he did a detective, helped to while away the 


WAITING. 


71 


minutes by relating many an experience of his long 
and crowded career. 

It was getting close to two o’clock Sunday morning, 
and still no word had been heard from McCain. Some 
of the detectives were getting nervous. 

“Give them time,” said Perkins. “The delivery of 
the ransom may take all night. At any rate we have 
got to wait for it. If the money is turned over success¬ 
fully, it can’t be many hours before the boy comes back 
and our work starts.” 

Waiting—the hardest work in the world. Only a 
woman strong enough to wait. Under the stress of 
waiting the body tires as does that of a long distance 
runner, the brain grows weary from very inactivity, the 
nerves become raw. 

Only a woman is strong enough for a terrible ordeal 
of waiting. The man can sweat at the furnace, he may 
plod long hours after the plow, his endurance carries 
him through weary periods of brain exercise. But he 
cannot wait. 

The woman, too, can do much physical work, bear 
great physical pain. Yet when it comes to waiting, in¬ 
active in the face of great developments—those hours 
of waiting, waiting that tear patience to tatters and 
rips endurance to ribbons—she is supreme. 

The clock hands crawled around to three o’clock 
Sunday morning. Still the hunters sat and waited. 
Still no word from Ashtabula. The men tried to get 
solace from strong cigars. Coffee was served. The 
men lingered at it, consuming as much time as possible. 
Games of cards were begun and never finished, dying 


72 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


from the sheer want of attention on the part of the 
players. 

They knew not what instant the call would come. 
And when the call should come they would be up like 
hounds, keen to be in at the death in the most remark¬ 
able kidnaping of American history. 

“If McCain could only call us up—give us some 
idea of what is happening!” ejaculated a young 
detective. 

“G. B.” raised a mild hand for patience. 

“He doesn’t dare,” replied the old detective. “He 
knows his mission mustn’t even be known by Whitla. 
McCain is in hostile country now. His first move 
would bring discovery. I wasn’t afraid of this gang at 
Sharon. They have asked for only $10,000. So I was 
sure they were not numerous enough to watch Whitla 
there. That is why I wasn’t afraid to hold him until 
the money was identified. 

“If I had had the least idea the kidnapers were 
watching Whitla’s actions in Sharon I wouldn’t have 
thought of delaying him so that he couldn’t take the 
train specified in the kidnapers’ letter. 

“But there was no chance Whitla was being watched 
there. I’ll stake my reputation on it. However this 
Ashtabula trip turns out I shall never reproach myself 
for delaying Mr. Whitla. If the boy isn’t turned over 
at Ashtabula it won’t be because Whitla stayed longer 
than his orders permitted.” 

This was the longest speech Perkins had made since 
the watch began. As he was talking, cards were dropped 
and the others gathered around to listen. 


WAITING. 


73 


“Do you think they will kill the boy if he isn’t deliv¬ 
ered in this attempt?” asked one of the Cleveland 
detectives. 

“They may and they may notreplied Perkins. “I 
have altered my opinion of them greatly in the past 
few hours. 

“When the boy was first stolen I feared the little 
chap’s life was in great danger. If I had known as 
much about the cleverness of this crowd then as I do 
now, I would not have feared for Billy. 

“My first thought was that the boy had been taken 
by amateur desperadoes, men capable of stealing a child 
successfully—which after all is a simple task—but who 
would be unable to devise a way to get the ransom and 
effect the delivery of Billy. 

“Such being my estimate of them, I feared they 
would soon realize the dangers of the task they had set 
themselves, become panic stricken at the way the country 
was being aroused and kill Billy so as to destroy all 
chances of ever being identified as the criminals. 

“Now I see I made a mistake in the way I sized them 
up. I am convinced they are cool, calculating crooks. 
I believe they are capable of carrying through their 
desperate crime. 

“But, gentlemen, there is a new danger that grows 
greater every hour Billy is missing. The kidnapers 
must realize that every hour the boy is with them in¬ 
creases their own peril. Each letter received from them, 
each unsuccessful attempt to deliver the ransom draws 
the net closer about them. 

“The history of kidnaping in America shows that 
only those have been successfully carried through in 


74 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


which the ransom was delivered within a very few hours 
after the stealing occurred. In most of the other cases 
the kidnaped children have never been seen again. It is 
almost a necessity that the ransom be paid immediately 
or never. 

“Do you realize, gentlemen, that Billy Whitla has 
been gone nearly seventy-two hours now? It is that 
which makes me fear that, unless the affair is wound up 
tonight or is. closed as the result of tonight’s happenings 
at Ashtabula, Billy’s father and mother will never see 
him alive again. 

“If this attempt fails I can see nothing for the future. 
As a last desperate measure I will then advise that the 
hunt be entirely withdrawn, leaving the field to the kid¬ 
napers and Mr. Whitla alone. Then the difficulties in 
the way of further negotiations may be made somewhat 
slighter. There would be a final chance, but a slight 
one.” 

“Do you think they would kill the boy?” asked a 
detective in horror. 

“I do not believe these criminals would kill Billy in 
cold blood if they could avoid it and save their own 
lives. But the whole country is terribly aroused. The 
indignation constantly increases. For the kidnapers 
to be found with the boy in their possession now would 
be their death warrant. The mob would have their 
lives. 

“I believe that should some detective blunder near 
their hiding place, or if citizens should organize a house 
to house search covering the entire suspected territory, 
the kidnapers seeing inevitable discovery ahead of 


WAITING. 


75 


them, would kill Billy and escape in the best way they 
could.” 

These men first had been hired for the work of un¬ 
covering the criminals. They went to that work in a 
matter-of-fact way. They caught a glimpse of a father’s 
agonized face, a lamp set in a window by a stricken 
mother, and then the task of finding Billy and bringing 
retribution upon the heads of his abductors became a 
personal matter with each detective. And at the sug¬ 
gestion the kidnapers might add murder to their crime, 
eyes steeled relentlessly, unconsciously fists were 
clenched. 

In imagination each detective could see himself the 
avenger who should run down the fugitives. Each 
pictured the fierce joy of being the instrument to bring 
the criminals to justice. 

Four o’clock and still no word! Still Perkins kept 
up his monologue, broken at intervals by questions from 
the others. As the minutes dragged themselves past, 
discouragement began to creep upon the hunters. Some¬ 
one noticed the street lights outside were growing pale, 
and they knew another dawn had come. 

And then—the telephone bell in the room tinkled 
faintly. Perkins was at the receiver in an instant. 

“Hello, hello, hello,” he called impatiently. “Yes, 
this is Perkins. Yes, I’ve been waiting for it. All right. 
I’ll be right here.” 

Fie hung up the receiver and spoke to the others. 

“It’s Ashtabula,” he said. “They’ll switch in the 
call in a minute or two.” 

Lassitude had fled. And with it weariness. All 
were on their feet, standing. Some walked nervously 


76 THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 

to the window. The bell tinkled again. Perkins 
answered. 

“Hello, McCain?” he called. “Yes. What’s that! 
Opened the letter? Who did? Yes, go on. Yes. 
Yes—” 

He stood listening, saying, “Yes. Go on,” many 
times into the mouthpiece. 

The group had pressed close around him, trying to 
catch the elfin whispers of the receiver. Perkins hung up 
the receiver and turned without a word. Even before 
he spoke the hunters knew the news was bad. Disap¬ 
pointment was written on the detective’s face. 

“McCain says it’s all off,” he said, simply. “Whitla 
got a second letter. It told him to place the money in 
the cannon in the Ashtabula park. He did it. He 
waited all night. At four o’clock he went to the cannon. 
The money hadn’t been disturbed.” 

No one spoke. 

“McCain says the hotel clerk opened the letter be¬ 
fore Whitla got there,” continued Perkins. “Showed 
it to the police. They surrounded the park. They 
killed, deliberately killed, the last chance that man will 
ever have to get his boy again, and by Heaven some¬ 
body’s going to suffer for it!” 


CHAPTER X. 


THE DARKEST HOUR. 

“Ashtabula Was Only a Test—You Played Fair and 
You’ll Find Your Boy.” 



HE effect of the unsuccessful attempt to recover 


-*• lost Billy at Ashtabula was felt keenly by the 
country. As the nation day by day had watched the 
progress of the search, the whole crime had become a 
great public affair. The grief of the mother, the de¬ 
spair of the father had been absorbed by the people un¬ 
til that grief and despair was being shared by the mil¬ 


lions. 


And when it was learned that the first real plans for 
recovering the boy had fallen through, the news fell 
as a public calamity. 

At first the public had commented glibly upon the 
case, offering as many theories as there were theorizers. 
But now the disappointment became a personal thing 
with millions of men, women and children. The case 
was discussed everywhere. Interest in business and 
politics dwindled to nothing. 

The public had been asking a single question: “Is 
he found yet?” 


78 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


And when the newspapers printed the story of the 
Ashtabula failure, men looked at each other and shook 
their heads. In their eyes there was the look of fear. 

“It’s too late now.” The public came to the conclu¬ 
sion reluctantly. But such a conclusion was inevitable. 

And then popular rage swelled against the kidnapers. 
Threats were heard everywhere through Cleveland, 
Ashtabula, Youngstown, Sharon, Pittsburg, any of the 
places where the abductors might be in hiding. 

There is no doubt that if the kidnapers had been 
caught immediately after the Ashtabula failure they 
would have paid their lives to popular rage in spite of 
all the police and militia the authorities might choose 
to bring against the mob. 

G. B. Perkins raged and fumed after the full details 
of the Ashtabula fiasco had been told to him. At first 
there was nothing for him but that he would hurry to 
Ashtabula to bring vengeance down upon the heads of 
those responsible for the opening of the letter and the 
subsequent picketing of officers about the cannon. 

His detectives persuaded him to moderate action. A 
hasty council of war was held. It was decided to bring 
Whitla on to Cleveland at once. Then the whole case 
would be reviewed and a new plan of action determined 
upon. 

Accordingly the long distance telephone was resorted 
to. As a result Whitla and Detective McCain, who, 
after the money was found untouched, had revealed to 
Whitla his presence in Ashtabula, took an early electric 


THE DARKEST HOUR. 79 

car from Ashtabula and arrived in Cleveland in time for 
breakfast Sunday. 

The interval during which Whitla was traveling to 
Cleveland was taken by the detectives as an opportunity 
to find rest. Most of them slept. By the time the 
father arrived they were up again, however, and ready 
for another day’s work. 

As Whitla entered the detectives’ room the hunters 
were immediately struck by the change in the man’s 
appearance. He seemd to have aged twenty years 
since he had left them at Sharon but a few hours be¬ 
fore. The Ashtabula disappointment had told on him 
terribly. Deep lines creased his face. His eyes were 
sunken. The detectives could not be sure, but it seemed 
his hair had turned a shade whiter. 

He had recovered somewhat from the prostration 
that had seized him at Ashtabula in the first awful agony 
of disappointment. But even now he moved as a man 
in a dream. It was hard for them to bring his attention 
to bear upon small points under discussion. 

The whole company went to breakfast together. 
Whitla would have eaten nothing had not the others 
urged him. They told him everything depended upon 
his ability to keep his strength. Thus urged, he man¬ 
aged to force himself to swallow food. 

The father and the detectives spent the morning in 
consultation. 

Then, for the first time, dissension entered the ranks 
of the hunters. 

Perkins, the chief, wanted to abandon the search. 


8o 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WILITLA. 


“Let’s announce publicly—in the newspapers—that 
we are at our wits’ ends,” he advised. “Let’s tell the 
world the kidnapers are too shrewd for us; that we 
know no more now than we did at the beginning. Then 
let’s make good our word and withdraw from the field. 
If that course is followed I believe the kidnapers will 
communicate with Mr. Whitla again. If it isn’t fol¬ 
lowed, then I don’t hold out any hope.” 

This plan was opposed by T. S. Ward, the detective 
brought in from Philadelphia to be second in command. 

Ward spoke for keeping up the mysterious attitude 
adopted by all detectives. He urged that the search be 
continued; that the detectives preserve their dmeanor 
of possessing much knowledge of the case not common 
property. 

“It will block everything,” said Perkins. 

“It will show the kidnapers we haven’t lost our 
nerve,” retorted Ward. “Bye-and-bye they will realize 
they are playing in a game too strong for them and will 
release the boy without making an attempt to get the 
reward.” 

“Do you realize what appearance keeping up the 
pursuit will have to the kidnapers?” asked Perkins. 
“They prescribed the plans to be followed at Ashtabula. 
Apparently they themselves followed them to the slight¬ 
est detail. But when they came to get the ransom what 
did they find? The whole park surronded by offi¬ 
cers, ready to close in upon the first person to visit the 
cannon. They could arrive at only one conclusion— 
treachery on the part of Mr. Whitla.” 


THE DARKEST HOUR. 


“But the opening of the letter—the whole thing at 
Ashtabula was a mistake,” protested Ward. 

“The kidnapers are likely to believe that, aren’t 
they?” asked Perkins sarcastically. “Outside the few 
of us to know the letter really was opened by mistake 
you can depend upon it there are not a dozen people in 
the whole country who will believe the story of the clerk 
opening the letter through curiosity. The whole public 
will believe with the kidnapers—that we tried to cap¬ 
ture the abductors by treachery, failed and then at¬ 
tempted to cover by giving out the story of the curious 
hotel clerk. 

“That’s the pity of it,” continued the old detective. 
“The story is too obvious. If we really had been 
treacherous we could have contrived a better explanation 
to cover our failure than that of a hotel clerk opening a 
letter entrusted to his care. As it is we can’t even make 
the public believe the story, let alone the kidnapers, who 
are naturally suspicious of all our moves. 

“No,” concluded Perkins, “there is now only one 
thing for us to do—withdraw. Let the kidnapers see 
we are in earnest. We will leave the state entirely. 
Then if Mr. Whitla is able to get in touch with them 
again, we can come back and join the pursuit after Billy 
is returned.” 

Whitla was inclined to agree with the old detective. 
The others joined in the discussion. The opinion was 
overwhelmingly against Ward. While the deliberation 
was going on Perkins sat back with closed eyes. When 


82 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


he opened them again there was a new light in them. 
He leaned forward in his chair. 

“Mr. Whitla,” he cried. “I believe I see the truth 
of this Ashtabula affair. I don’t believe the kidnapers 
ever had any intention of delivering Billy to you there. 
I believe they were simply testing you, finding out if you 
are sincere in your published agreement to play fair with 
them. 

“You will remember this phrase in the letter you re¬ 
ceived from them: 

“ ‘If we don’t take the money you will know we have 
changed the plan.’ 

“I know now—I am certain they never intended to 
take the money. Else why did they put that sentence in 
the letter. There sas no need for it otherwise. They 
simply desired to test your good faith. 

“If my deduction is correct you will hear from them 
again, sure. If I am on the right track, then they 
watched your every move in Ashtabula. They didn’t 
bother about watching the money. They watched you. 
They saw you come to the hotel and receive their letter. 
They saw your anger and disappointment when you 
found the letter opened. Probably they had even seen 
the clerk run a curious finger under the flap of the en¬ 
velope. 

“I don’t believe they could have delivered Billy in 
Ashtabula. The boy is in Cleveland. We know that. 


THE DARKEST HOUR. 


83 


Every letter has been addressed by him. Every letter 
has been mailed in Cleveland. How were they going 
to get Billy into Ashtabula, when every steam and elec¬ 
tric line is watched and every highway under guard. 
They couldn’t do it and what’s more they never in¬ 
tended to do it. 

“The whole thing was a test. And they are satisfied 
now you meant to play fair. 

“Your best plan, therefore, is to appear unaware that 
this was simply a test and feign an anxiety lest the kid¬ 
napers construe the guarding of the cannon as treachery 
on your part. 

“You can do this by giving a statement to the news¬ 
papers that you have called off all your detectives and 
hereafter will take the case in your own hands. The 
criminals are not afraid you will use us treacherously, 
but you want to make it appear you think they will be 
afraid. 

“The whole thing is so simple I can’t conceive why 
I didn’t think of it before. Of course they might have 
intended to take the ransom at Ashtabula and then send 
you another letter naming a spot in Cleveland where 
you would find Billy, but I don’t believe they would 
spread out their operations so. 

“No, you’re going to get your boy, Mr. Whitla. I 
might have had doubts of it before, but your Ashtabula 
trip has assured me. You will hear from the kidnapers 


8 4 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


very soon, and the next letter will result in the finding 
of Billy.” 

Perkins’ enthusiasm carried conviction with it. Again 
the light of hope flickered in Whitla’s eyes. The other 
detectives endorsed Perkins’ plan to a man. Even Ward 
was convinced. 

A letter was prepared for the newspapers. It was 
addressed to the kidnapers. It told of the withdrawal 
of the detectives from Ohio, and assured the kidnapers 
that their letter was opened by mistake. 

Then Whitla and the detectives took a Sunday after¬ 
noon train back to Sharon. 


CHAPTER XI. 
HOPES RISE AGAIN . 


Whitla and $10,000 Packed In a Satchel Embark On 
a Train For Cleveland . 


r i 'HE spirits of the party rose higher and higher as 
the train roared through the pleasant Ohio val¬ 
leys lazily stretching themselves in the first spring sun-' 
shine. 

The truth of old “G. B.’s” deductions grew upon 
the detectives as the conversation went on. One after 
another thought of new circumstances that pointed to 
the Ashtabula trip being only a test. And as this con¬ 
viction was borne into their minds their confidence grew. 

Where but a few hours before it seemed that all 
was lost, now it appeared that a long stride had been 
taken in the direction of recovering the missing boy. 

What before had seemed disaster now was seen in its 
true light—the final assurance that Billy would be 
found. 

Great was the admiration of the detectives for the 
master minds of the kidnapers who had contrived this 
clever plan. 

Whitla himself had accepted Perkins’ view of the 
situation. And the relief to the father was so great 
it made him happier than he had been at any time since 
Billy disappeared from the East Ward school house. 

True, he had not yet recovered his son. But, with 
the detectives, he was sure he was about to do so. 

A few hours before he had been only an automaton, 
whose stunned brain and body were forced to act by 
sheer compulsion from an indomitable will. Now the 


86 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY VVHITLA. 


great stone of despair had suddenly been rolled from 
off his heart. He breathed again. His mind was again 
the planning, comprehensive intellect of the searcher 
after facts. 

He felt sleepy. Before, sleep or the thought of it 
seemed to have deserted him forever. Now the healing 
processes of the body were going on again. He was 
tired physically. It was a good sign. 

The man still bore the ravages of the mental storm 
that had descended upon him during those terrible hours 
at Ashtabula. The lines of care still clung to his face. 
He was haggard and worn. His hand shook distress¬ 
ingly. But the men knew now he would be found stand¬ 
ing at the end. He joined freely in the conversation. 
Once or twice he laughed. 

****** 

In Sharon Sunday morning it had fallen to the lot 
of a group of women to deliver a message. It was a 
terrible message, one the mere telling of. which was 
almost as hard as the hearing. 

The women were those staying at the Whitla house 
to give what comfort they could to the mother of Billy. 
And the message was that the attempt to ransom her 
baby at Ashtabula had failed. 

How those women dreaded to bear that message! 
Yet the woman they were to tell had not closed her 
eyes since Whitla had left for Ashtabula with the 
money. She had been so confident that her terrible 
experience was at an end, so sure that a few hours would 
find her clasping her little boy to her bosom! 

Hour after hour she had waited for the news that 
was to turn her anguish into great joy. Hour after 
hour—and the message had not come! 


HOPES RISE AGAIN. 


87 


The others dreaded to tell her the truth. And yet 
it was better she should know at once, rather than wait 
for a gradual realization of the truth, imagining evils 
worse than the truth, thinking, perhaps, the others were 
holding something back from her—that her baby had 
been murdered. 

The women waited no longer. They went to her. 

She did not take it as badly as they had feared. She 
knew by the faces of those approaching that they had 
no good news for her. Almost mechanically her mind 
received the words that killed her hope. But that mind 
had already been mercifully numbed by the many blows 
that had fallen upon it. 

She did not weep. The others hoped for the tears 
that would bring relief, but they did not come. She 
only asked to be alone. And they left her so, after a 
single glance at her face. 

About mid-day she was called to the telephone to talk 
to Whitla in Cleveland. He told her of the new theory 
of the detectives, and again hope fought for a place 
in her stricken soul. 

In the evening Whitla came. He went first to his 
wife to comfort her. And then she learned of Perkins’ 
and her husband’s conviction that the Ashtabula trip 
had been a test—a successful test—one that assured the 
early return of her boy. 

The poor woman could not understand how men 
could be so cruel as to torture almost beyond endurance 
for the purpose of making a test. But she grasped at 
the hope held out by the detectives as she would at a 
straw if she had been drowning in deep water. Bit by 
bit she caught her husband’s cheerfulness, until she, too, 
was confident she would soon see Billy. 

And then came healing sleep. 


88 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


Monday morning—four days since Billy was taken 
—and still no word! 

The public were convinced by this time that Billy 
never would be found. A shadow of grief fell upon 
the land. Twenty-four hours had passed without de¬ 
velopments. It seemed a certainty that those hours 
would stretch out into days and weeks, and still no 
Billy, until gradually a father would become reconciled 
to the truth, and the mother would learn to weep at an 
empty tomb. 

In contrast to the public gloom, breakfast was going 
on almost cheerfully at the Whitla house. A few 
hours of rest had done much for the strength of both 
Whitla and his wife. There was still great worry over 
the lost boy, but the sharp edge of despair had been 
dulled. 

Thousands of persons were writing to Whitla, offer¬ 
ing advice, urging him to consult mediums and fortune 
tellers. Some of the letters purported to be from the 
kidnapers. They gave instructions for the delivery of 
the money. 

Whitla started going through his mail as soon as it 
was brought from the office. He merely glanced at 
fake demands, specious advice and volunteer sympathy. 
He was looking for another letter. And he found it. 

He knew the letter before he opened it. It was ad¬ 
dressed in Billy’s well known boyish scrawl. Whitla 
read the contents, then called Perkins and the other 
detectives. 

A short time later Whitla, with the ransom again 
packed in his grip, left Sharon for Cleveland. The 
detectives waited in Sharon. 


CHAPTER XII. 

“ITS HIM! ITS HIMT 

An Owl-Boy Flits From the Darkness Into a Brilliant 
Throng and Is Held In Strong Arms. 

T HE lobby of the Hollenden Hotel, in Cleveland, 
pulsated with life on the evening of Monday, 
March 22nd, 1909. 

It was just when the theaters were opening. Dinner, 
an affair of gleaming, shoulders, flashing jewels and 
eyes, was over. Now beautiful women, their rich gowns 
covered by loose theater cloaks, were thronging the 
corridors. It was a brilliant scene. 

White coated pages darted through the happy, 
babbling crowd, crying their names in the routine sing¬ 
song. Incoming travelers, following the uniforms of 
laden bell boys, shouldered through the press up to the 
desk to inscribe their names upon the register. Auto¬ 
mobiles whirled away from the porticoed entrances. 

A thousand lights sparkled in the massive chandeliers. 
Dainty shoes tripped across the tiled pavement. The 
heavily upholstered lounging chairs were filled with 
men, most of them in evening dress. They smoked at 
leisure. They talked together. 

Looking out from the lobby the eye could gaze down 
a vista of parlors. They were furnished in color 
schemes and according to periods of history. Silken 
hangings, massive, easeful furniture, mirrors, rugs from 
the Orient, perfumed air, all was luxury. 

From somewhere came the strains of orchestra music, 
mellowed by distance. The conversation lulled and 
the fairy tinkle of glasses fell upon the ear. Occasional¬ 
ly could be heard a chorus of laughter from merry¬ 
makers in some concealed part of the palace of pleasure. 


9 ° 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


It was a throbbing, kaleidoscopic scene of life—at 
that hour of the evening the one most prominent, most 
public spot in the most populous city of Ohio. 

Few in that throng failed to notice a man leaning up¬ 
on the hotel desk in such a position that he faced the 
main entrance to the lobby. From his negligent posture 
he might have been taken for an idler, whiling away 
the minutes in the gently exciting occupation of watch¬ 
ing the departure of the well dressed crowd for the 
theaters. 

But those who took the trouble to glance at the man’s 
face changed any such opinion. 

It was a remarkable face with clean outlines and a 
wide, rounded brow—the face of a gentleman above 
the ordinary in mental and social attainments. The 
well cut clothing of the man bore out this impression. 

But the face—it gave one an unpleasant feeling to 
look at it! It was at once young and old. Nearer yet— 
the face of a young man who had looked at despair 
dauntlessly and had been aged thereby. 

The face was creased and gray with care. The hair, 
too, was gray—prematurely so, it seemed. There was 
that about the corners of the drawn mouth that might 
have brought impulsive pity to the mind of a close 
observer. The mouth seemed to be that of one re¬ 
pressing great emotion from the glare of publicity. 

The man seemed to be unaware of the many curious 
glances thrown in his direction. He seemed oblivious of 
the dodging pages, the rustling of expensive gowns, the 
subdued murmur of conversation, the lights and the 
jewels and the glitter. 

Instead, he stood with one arm thrown across the 
marble top of the desk. And his eyes never for an in¬ 
stant left the revolving doors of the main entrance. 


“it’s him! it’s him!” 


9i 


The man was James P. Whitla, of Sharon. And 
again, as he had done in the humbler hotel in Ashtabula, 
he was waiting. 

All the light in the great dramatic picture of the kid¬ 
naping was at that moment concentrated upon the face 
of Whitla, as he stood leaning upon the desk, watching 
the doors with a never wavering gaze. 

For him legislatures were holding extra sessions, the 
ponderous machinery of the law was in motion, thou¬ 
sands and millions had sent up their prayers, and the 
great human public, snarling at last in its disappointed 
rage, was preparing to take the hunt into its own hands 
in a last, desperate effort to find the lost Billy Whitla. 

Most of the idle talk in the lobby had for its subject 
the kidnaping. Yet few knew the man at the desk was 
Whitla. He had come to Cleveland from Sharon un¬ 
heralded. His actions in the city had been quiet ones. 
His presence in the hotel was not known to the city. 

Yet there were certain ones in the hotel who knew 
the identity of the man at the desk. In an upper room 
were detectives, also waiting. Hovering about the 
lobby were a score of quiet men, who spoke to few per¬ 
sons, but kept their eyes fixed upon Whitla. 

These men were newspaper reporters. They were 
reporters from Cleveland, from Pittsburg, from Chicago 
and New York. These men were the eyes and the ears 
of the American public. And the American public de¬ 
manded that its attention be fixed upon the face of 
Whitla, of Sharon. 

The reporters expected developments, important 
ones. They had known that Whitla had reached Cleve¬ 
land early Monday afternoon. He had come immedi¬ 
ately to the hotel. He asked the newspaper men not to 


92 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


announce his presence in Cleveland and his request was 
obeyed. 

Later in the afternoon he had left the hotel carrying 
a package. When he returned an hour or so later the 
package was not in his hands. From this significant 
fact the reporters made the deduction that the money 
had been delivered. Then came the suspense, the wait¬ 
ing, the question: 

“Will they be fair now and return the boy?” 

All this, however, was deduction. So far as personal 
knowledge went, no one in the hotel knew whether 
Whitla had been in negotiation with the kidnapers or 
not. They only knew Whitla was standing at the desk, 
unmindful of the glitter and splendor about him, but 
watching the doors with eyes that never turned away. 

Suddenly there was a commotion in the center of the 
lobby near the desk. So sudden was the stir that many 
thought someone had fainted. Curious eyes were turned 
in that direction. Women, attired for the theater, 
paused on their way down the broad stairs to look. 

What they saw was this: A little man, whose face 
was very red, was jumping up and down and waving 
his arms frantically. 

He was waving his arms much as a woman waves 
hers to frighten chickens away. Apparently he was 
shouting, for his mouth opened and shut. But in the 
sudden rising of conversation the words could not be 
heard. 

He seemed to be waving in a certain direction. Those 
whom his ludicrous and unexplained scene had held spell¬ 
bound looked in the direction the little man was waving 
and shouting. And then there was a sudden lull in the 
general conversation, and everybody could hear the lit¬ 
tle man’s frantic words. 



* 


Candy Store Where the $10,000.00 Was Left 


















































































The $10,000 Ransom 
















































*• 



“IT’S HIM! IT’S HIM!’’ 








93 


“it’s him! it’s him!” 

It s him! It’s him! It’s him,” he was shouting, 
more frantically every moment. 

Some thought he was the victim of a seizure of some 
sort. A few others, however, knew him as a newspaper 
reporter. But looking across, all saw he was shouting 
to a group of young men—reporters, too—standing in 
the doors of the row of telephone booths across the 
lobby. 

“It’s him! It’s him!” 

At each shout the young men in the booths dropped 
to rattle the receivers frantically and then sprang up 
again to look questioningly at the red faced little man, 
whose face each moment grew redder from his exertions. 

“It’s him! It’s him!” 

One or two of the young men in the booths had 
dropped to their seats and were now rattling the re¬ 
ceivers in earnest, trying to get the attention of the tele¬ 
phone exchange operators. The others continued alter¬ 
nately to rattle the receivers and to spring up to look 
questioningly at the little man—and in another direc¬ 
tion. 

Those in the lobby looked in the other direction, too. 
And there they saw a little boy, dressed in knicker¬ 
bockers, standing and blinking in the brilliant light. 

He was a very little boy. He wore a cap. He had 
come suddenly in from the darkness, and the unwonted 
brilliancy of the lobby lights made him blink very 
solemnly and very owl-like. He wore a pair of big, 
round, steel rimmed spectacles, too large for him, and 
these made him look the more like a little owl who had 
flown confused in from out the friendly darkness. 

“It’s him! It’s him!” The little man kept up his 
frantic cries. He pointed to the owl boy and waved 
the young men back into the booths. The spectators 


94 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


were bewildered. But unconsciously they fell back, 
away from the blinking boy and the shouter. And 
then, drowning the shouts, they heard another cry, a cry 
in a terrible voice, a voice hoarse with trembling emo¬ 
tion. 

“Billy!” 

The startled throng turned. They saw a man strid¬ 
ing across the ring that had been unconsciously formed. 
The stride was slow. His feet seemed to glide and to 
be planted. 

“Billy!” 

He was approaching the owl boy. At the sound of 
the hoarse voice the waif cocked his head like a listen¬ 
ing bird. He peered around through his steel rimmed 
spectacles. 

“Billy!” 

The striding man had reached the boy. And then 
those who had noticed, saw it was the gray-faced man 
who had been leaning against the desk watching the 
doors. The man’s arms were around the boy. 

“Billy!” he called again. 

The boy blinked. He seemed dazed. 

“Billy!” The man shook the blinking boy by the 
shoulder. 

The dazed eyes traveled round. Then swept upward, 
paused in their flight, fixed upon the gray face above. 
They held there a moment, not a muscle of the boy 
stirring. Then, slowly at first, two arms went up and 
embraced the gray man’s neck. The little shoulders 
lifted and fell in a sigh. He nestled into the arms about 
him. 

“Oh, daddy,” came a piping voice snuggled into the 
gray man’s neck. “Oh, daddy, I’m so glad I found 
you.” 


CHAPTER XIII. 


A NATION MAD WITH JOY. 

Billy Awakens to Find Himself a Hero and Wonders 
What Ids All About. 

' | A HEY patted his head and cheered him and 
-■* praised his bravery, did this big hearted, foolish, 
sentimental, happy American crowd that night for yel¬ 
low haired Billy Whitla. 

They stood him up on the desk and demanded a 
speech. They clapped their hands. They cheered. 
They laughed. They slapped each other on the 
shoulders. They shouted in their mad joy to welcome 
back this boy who was lost and had been found again. 

In five minutes it became necessary to put a squad 
of police at the Hollenden hotel doors to keep out the 
people who had already packed the lobby to suffocation. 
In ten minutes five thousand excited men and women 
were massed around the hotel, clamoring to know how 
Billy looked, how he talked, what he said, how his 
father had clasped him in his arms. 

From inside the cheers rolled out. On the desk, above 
the heads of the throng, stood Billy. Eager hands were 
stretched upward to grasp his. Men he had never seen 
before in his short life addressed him affectionately as 
“Billy.” These men had come to regard him almost as 
their own. Whitla’s grief had been theirs. 


9 6 THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 

And all the while Billy stood staring down at this 
mighty hubbub with blinking, wondering eyes. 

He hadn’t known he had been lost at all. He couldn’t 
understand what all this commotion was about. Once 
he stopped and whispered something to his father, who 
stood with a jealous arm about his boy’s knees. 

“Daddy,” he said confidentially, “I didn’t get it.” 

“Get what, Billy?” asked Whitla mechanically. 

“The smallpox,” was Billy’s mysterious answer. 

Whitla didn’t find time to get at the explanation of 
this enigma. For suddenly he realized the people were 
cheering him, Billy’s father. There were cries for a 
speech. 

The lawyer turned a face shining with great joy upon 
the people. Then he suddenly recognized the good 
fellowship and the sincere sympathy and satisfaction 
in the press of kindly faces about him, in the hands 
that were grasping out to meet his. He received a great 
inward revelation of his kinship with all men. And 
as he realized it a great lump crowded up into his 
throat. His eyes glistened. He swallowed. He tried 
to speak. 

“My friends,” he began, and at the first word an 
instant hush fell upon the hotel lobby. “My friends, if 
I lived a thousand years I—wouldn’t—be able to— 
thank you—” 

He stopped and suddenly bowed his face in both 
hands upon the desk. 

“I’ve found my boy. I’ve found my boy,” he sobbed, 
utterly broken down. 


A NATION MAD WITH JOY. 


97 


Then there was a storm of nose blowings, though 
for the life of them the crowd couldn’t have told 
whether their emotion came from joy or sadness. 

But in a moment Whitla’s face was up again. He 
called a negro bell boy to guard Billy. Then he 
shouldered through the crowd for a telephone booth. 

He didn’t have to wait an instant to get Sharon on 
the wire. Whitla must have known the boy was com¬ 
ing back that Sunday night, for he had kept up a con¬ 
stant telephone connection with his home so that he 
might be the first to tell the great news to the mother, 
who was still eating out her heart in grief and anxiety. 

In a moment he was talking to her. 

“Our dear Billy is all right,” he called, nc er waiting 
to close the booth door. Everybody heard his voice. 
“I’ve found him! I’ve got him 1” he cried into the tele¬ 
phone. “We’ll try to get home tonight.” 

Those near the booth plainly heard the receiver’s 
thin squeak. 

It was the mother’s cry of joy. 

Whitla came from the booth. There was another 
great cheer for Billy. A man pressed forward. He 
wore the gray uniform of a street car conductor. He 
told how Billy got on his car—a Payne avenue car— 
at the corner of East Thirtieth street. The man said 
his name was Frank J. Logan. 

“I thought he was Billy Whitla from the first,” said 
Logan. “He got on the car alone and slipped in with¬ 
out paying. I thought that showed him to be a boy 
not used to our street cars. 


98 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


“But with those spectacles on I didn’t recognize him 
absolutely. 

“He seemed so lonesome I went in and spoke to him. 
He said his name was Jones and he was going to meet 
his father at the Hollenden Hotel. I told him I would 
look after him and I did.” 

Whitla thanked the man and pressed a green bill 
into his hand. 

And then came Edward Maloney, a boy in years, 
who had seen Billy in the car from the sidewalk and 
had recognized him as the kidnapers’ victim. 

“I ran to the car and caught it,” said Maloney. “I 
asked the little fellow if he wasn’t Billy Whitla. He 
said he wasn’t. He said his name was Jones. I stayed 
with him, though, and helped bring him here.” 

Whitla pressed another green bill into Maloney’s 
hand and thanked him. 

Finally Policeman John Dewar came up. He had 
met Logan and Maloney with Billy and had gone with 
the three of them to the hotel. Whitla didn’t give away 
another bill to Dewar, because the police regulations 
forbade the taking of money, but the happy father shook 
hands heartily with the officer. 

When these stories had been told there was another 
cheer and the crowd surged forward again to touch 
Billy. Whitla kept his arms around the boy. 

“Don’t be afraid, Billy. You’re with your father,” 
Whitla repeated again and again. 

Billy wasn’t afraid. On the contrary he appeared 
remarkably indifferent to all the clamor. He seemed 
dazed. He said he was sleepy. 


A NATION MAD WITH JOY. 


99 


Whitla thought the boy had been drugged. A 
physician was called. He could find no evidences of a 
drug. 

“It was the candy,” said Billy. “The candy always 
makes me sleepy.” 

So Whitla gave up thought of returning to Sharon 
that night. Instead Billy was put into a big, clean bed. 
He was asleep almost as soon as his head touched the 
pHlow. 

Then Whitla came from the room where Billy was 
and told how he had been able to recover his lost baby. 

Negotiations had been opened again Monday morn¬ 
ing by the kidnapers, who sent Whitla a letter in 
Sharon. This was the message in substance: 

“We are satisfied it was no fault of yours that you 
failed to deliver the ransom in Ashtabula, Saturday 
night, so we are offering you another chance. You 
come to Cleveland on the Erie train, leaving Youngs¬ 
town at 11:10 o’clock Monday morning. Leave the 
train at Willson Avenue. Take a car to East Fifty-fifth 
Street and St. Clair Avenue. At Theodore Urban’s 
drug store, No. 5602 St. Clair Avenue, you will find a 
letter addressed to William Williams. We will never 
write you again on this matter. If you attempt to catch 
us you will never see your boy again.” 

Whitla followed instructions minutely. The final 
words of the kidnapers’ letter sent a chill of apprehen¬ 
sion through him. Still, his hopes were high as he 
boarded the train. For he believed the detectives’ 
theory that the Ashtabula failure had been in the nature 
of a test, and that his good faith had already been 


100 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


proven to the kidnapers. Whitla was confident he 
would bring his boy back from Cleveland. 

He left the train at the suburban station specified. 
He traveled directly to the drug store, a half hour’s ride 
by street car from the station. There he asked if a 
letter had been left for William Williams. 

One had. Whitla opened ft in the drug store. The 
new instructions were: 

“Go to the candy store at 1383 East Fifty-third 
Street. Have the money done up in a package. Leave 
the money there, to be called for by Mr. Hayes. Then 
go directly to the Hollenden Hotel. Your boy will be 
delivered to you there about eight o’clock tonight.” 

Whitla’s heart beat violently with excitement, as he 
realized he was at the crisis of the remarkable case. 
He inquired his way to the candy store. He was told 
it was but a short walk. 

Five minutes of brisk walking took him to the store. 
Then the lawyer marveled at the cleverness and the 
simplicity of the plan for delivering the ransom. There 
were no theatrics, no melodramatic scenes in lonely 
places by night. And yet the plan was safe as any that 
could be devised. 

Whitla, if he had been dealing double with the kid¬ 
napers, might have thrown detectives around the drug 
store specified in the letter that came to Sharon. The 
five minutes’ walk to the candy store, however, made 
further shadowing out of the question. If the kidnapers 
knew detectives were watching Whitla they would keep 
the boy forever, or kill him. The candy store was on 
a quiet street. No one could be following Whitla with- 





■ i!>*" 


% 

w 

4 


• , .* i. -• *-if. -? * : 

* 4 T* J *i*v 


» : f 


* - X ]' 

■ I 


The Mail Box Near the School House Where the Demand for Ransom Was Posted 










Mrs. Bernard Hendrickson, Who Innocently 
Handed the $ 10,000 Ransom 
to the Kidnapers 
















































































































A NATION MAD WITH JOY. 


IOI 


out being detected. Since Whitla did not know the 
delivery place until five minutes before he handed over 
the $10,000 ransom, it would be impossible for him to 
station detectives in surrounding buildings to watch the 
candy store. 

Whitla entered the store and accosted the woman be¬ 
hind the counter. She later proved to be Mrs. Bernard 
A. Hendrickson. 

“Here is a package that will be called for by Mr. 
Hayes,” he said. “Tell him Mr. Williams left it.” 

“Why Mr. Hayes was here asking about you just a 
few minutes ago,” replied Mrs. Hendrickson. “I guess 
he is expecting the package.” 

“Yes, he is,” replied Whitla, dryly. 

The woman promised to deliver the package and 
placed it carelessly on the shelf. For all she knew it 
was a package of handkerchiefs or paper clippings. 
Whitla left. 

Again the lawyer was constrained to admire the 
cleverness of the criminals he was dealing with. In a 
perfectly natural way they had prepared the candy wom¬ 
an to receive the package without suspicion. Whitla 
could readily tell she was entirely innocent of any com¬ 
plicity in the plot. 

The preliminary visit of “Mr. Hayes” did away with 
the chance that the candy woman would deliver the 
money to the wrong person. Once she had seen the 
man who inquired for such a package, she could be 
expected to remember his face for the rest of the day 
at least. 


102 THE KIDNAPING OF BILLV WHITLA. 

; ' 

Altogether it was a master stroke, and Whitla con¬ 
ceded it to be so as he left the candy store. 

Three minutes later another man entered the store. 
The candy woman exclaimed at the sight of him. 

“Aren’t you the man who was inquiring for Mr. 
Williams a little while ago?” she asked. “Well, sir, 
he was just here this minute. If you hurry you can 
catch him.” 

“Did he leave a package for me?” asked the man 
carelessly. 

“Here it is. I suppose you are Mr. Hayes, all right.” 

“That’s what they call me,” replied the man. He 
took the package and shoved it under his coat. 

“I think you can still catch up with him,” urged Mrs. 
Hendrickson, solicitously. 

“I’ll try to,” answered the man, and he left without 
another word. 

Whitla returned to the hotel. As the hours dragged 
by his nervousness grew. Darkness fell. He tried to 
eat a lonely dinner. Soon he took up his station at the 
hotel desk to watch. He saw the clock hands crawl 
from six to seven, to seven-thirty. 

The old feeling of despair was returning. The life of 
his boy, the happiness of his wife and himself, hung 
in the balance. On the other pan of the scales was the 
word of a gang of criminals. Would they return the 
boy honorably after receiving the money? Whitla was 
afraid to debate the question with himself. The nega¬ 
tive conclusion meant madness. His eyes burned with 
a strange light. He lost track of time. He did not 


A NATION MAD WITH JOY. 


IO 3 


heed the light hearted crowd about him. He only 
watched the doors—watched and watched with un¬ 
wavering eyes until Billy fluttered in like an owl. 

The kidnapers had kept their word! 

All night the newsboys raised echoes on quiet streets 
with their strident voices, shouting the tidings. 

“He’s found!” was their cry. 

Sober citizens stayed up late to read the latest de¬ 
velopments in the case. At Sharon bonfires burned. 
The whole nation knew the glad news before midnight. 

Billy slept peacefully in his white bed at the hotel. 
Whitla himself retired early. Both he and the boy 
were up with the dawn, getting ready to take an early 
train back to a woman in Sharon whose pillow that 
night had been wet with tears of thanksgiving. 

Father and son ate breakfast at an hour when most 
people are still abed. Yet a crowd collected, waiting 
for a glimpse of Billy. 

The boy was still dazed in the morning. A Cleve¬ 
land city detective talked to him. Billy said he had 
been in a great brick hospital with “300 rooms and 
thirty-five nurses.” 

“Doped,” was the detective’s succinct comment. 

Billy could remember little of importance about his 
trip to Cleveland, of his life in the four days he had 
been away. 

“He will do better after a day or two, when his mind 
will clear,” apologized Whitla, who, too, believed his 
son was still under the influence of some drug. 


104 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


One incident, however, Billy did remember. 

“Did you see out of the window?” asked the detec¬ 
tive. 

“Window?” inquired Billy’s piping voice. “Oh, yes. 
Once the lady let me look out.” 

“What did you see?” 

“Why, a big stone church, and street cars—Euclid 
and Cedar street cars—and red street cars with Chardon 
on them, and a sign that said Hotel Thorpe on it.” 

“You’re a brave, little chap,” said the detective, pat¬ 
ting Billy’s shoulder, and the boy again wondered what 
it was all about. 

A squad of policemen arrived at the hotel to keep 
back the crowds. They made a lane through which 
Billy was carried to an automobile. Cheer after cheer 
rent the air. Then the machine streaked away to the 
railway station. 

At the depot there was another cheering crowd. 
They wouldn’t let Whitla go until he had appeared on 
the back platform and made a speech, like a presidential 
candidate. 

The homecoming was one continual triumph. At 
each station there were crowds waiting. Whitla made 
speeches and Billy must needs appear and wave his lit¬ 
tle hand to the shouting multitudes. And then how 
they cheered! There were thousands to greet the train 
at Warren and Youngstown. At Sharon the crowd was 
so dense it was a problem how to get Billy from the 
train. 

They succeeded though. Billy made a speech. He 
thanked them all in an embarrassed, boyish way, but 


A NATION MAD WITH JOY. IO 5 

the people liked his few words as though they had been 
the eloquent oration of a great statesman. 

Never in American history was such a triumphal trip 
made by such a small boy. The American public was 
delirious with joy at his safe return to his home. 

All morning in the Whitla home a woman had been 
nervously walking about the house, arranging a vase of 
flowers here, pulling a curtain to just the proper height 
there. It was Mrs. Whitla. She was waiting for her 
baby to come home. 

When she had heard the great news the night be¬ 
fore, she put out the light that had burned every night 
since Billy was stolen. By that token Sharon knew 
Billy was found. 

A hundred times had she looked at the clock since 
early morning. How the minutes dragged! Her face, 
which plainly bore the cruel marks of the terrible hours 
of suffering she had passed through, was, nevertheless, 
transfigured with joy. 

“I am wonderfully happy,” she said once. 

At last all the whistles of Sharon began blowing. 
She knew the train had arrived. A carriage dashed up 
the street. She was on the porch waiting. The horses 
stopped. A pair of sturdy, little legs twinkled up the 
sidewalk. Her arms were about him at last. 

“Billy! Billy boy!” she murmured as best she could 
for kissing him. “My little Billy!” 

Then she hurried with him into the house, and no¬ 
body of the crowd on the lawn saw what happened 
there. 


io 6 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


After that they feted Billy. They cheered him. His 
old friends crowded about to shake his hand. Business 
houses closed. A holiday was declared. Sharon gave 
herself heart and soul over to rejoicing with the Whitlas. 
Merchants sent him presents. The “fellers” came to 
the house and Billy told them how glad he was to see 
them all again. They hardly dared to speak to him, 
such a very great hero had he become. 

That night millions of American mothers again bent 
over tiny cots, thanking God that He had answered 
their prayers and had restored Billy Whitla alive. And 
then they breathed a prayer that their darlings might 
never fall prey to the kidnaper. 

That night Mrs. Whitla bent over a drowsy Billy, 
her heart too full of joy for utterance. A tear splashed 
down upon Billy’s soft cheek. 

That night a tired little boy—the cause of this na¬ 
tional jubilation—fell easily asleep, still wondering 
what it was all about. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


THE ARREST OF THE KIDNAPERS . 

The Police Capture a Red Haired Woman, a Stolid 
Man and $9,790 of the Ransom. 

“ \ ND now —they get the kidnapers?” 

il The nation paused in its celebration over 
the return of Billy to ask itself this question. Every¬ 
where speculation was rife on the subject. 

Millions who a few short days before had never even 
heard the name of Whitla exulted with the father and 
the mother over their found baby. The pain of public 
apprehension was over. The people, so lately op¬ 
pressed with the fear that Billy might be made away 
with as was Charlie Ross years before, laughed with 
relief when they felt the weight of apprehension re¬ 
moved from their minds by the boy’s safe return. 

And then came the second thought—the kidnapers, 
those whose cunning brutality had forced the payment 
of the $10,000 by torturing a father’s love—get them! 
Make them suffer for it! Make of them examples to 
cause other villains to think long before attempting a 
similar crime! - 

A terrible thought struck the people: this kidnaping 
had been a successful one. The abductors had secured 
the money. Others would try the scheme. An epidemic 
of kidnaping would follow. 

As long as the kidnapers should be at large and un¬ 
punished, every home in the land was threatened! 


io8 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


The public paused in its jubilation; paused to set its 
teeth and grip its fists in a grim and holy desire for 
vengeance. Amateur detectives sprang up like mush¬ 
rooms after a dewy night. Theories looking to the cap¬ 
ture of the outlaws were numberless. 

“But will they catch them?” 

That was the general question. And the common 
answer was that the kidnapers would effect their escape. 

Detectives were already hurrying to Cleveland. The 
inexorable pursuit had started at last. Whitla no 
longer tried to stop the search. Instead he was urging 
it on. His boy was in his arms again. In his heart 
there was a very human desire for revenge. 

The man hunt, that should not stop until the hunters 
either were victorious or confessed themselves defeated, 
was on! 

States and cities recognized the paramount impor¬ 
tance of catching the criminals. The public fear that 
this crime would arouse the envy and emulation of other 
criminals was shared by the public officials. The Cleve¬ 
land city detective force was thrown into the case in 
earnest. As long as Billy was missing they respected 
the wishes of Whitla and conducted only a perfunctory 
search. The moment the boy was returned to the Hol- 
lenden every man on the force was put on the case. 

The state of Pennsylvania did not withdraw its 
$15,000 reward, to secure which required both the re¬ 
turn of the boy and the capture of the kidnapers. In¬ 
stead the reward was continued for the criminals alone. 
Many other rewards which had been offered under the 
same conditions were continued. Some were even raised. 



Conductor Frank J. Logan, Who Recognized Billy on His 
Car the Night of the Return 












































Edward Mahoney, the Youth Who Saw Billy on the Car and 
Took Him to His Father at the Hollenden Hotel 











































































* 



















































* 





















































* 





























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Billy and his Dad the Morning After the Boy was Recovered 































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Billy, on the Train Going Home, Writes His Autograph 












THE ARREST OF THE KIDNAPERS. IO9 

Those in the heart of the chase believed thoroughly 
the kidnapers would be apprehended. G. B. Perkins, 
the veteran detective, assured the public it was impos¬ 
sible for the kidnapers to escape. 

“Their money is all marked,” he said. “The num¬ 
bers of all the bills are now in the hands of every bank 
cashier in the country. The day a single one of these 
bills is presented the whereabouts of the kidnapers will 
be known. They may not attempt to use any of the 
money for a year. But eventually they will spend it. 
And the spending of it will mark their doom. 

“There is yet to be a case in American criminal his¬ 
tory where a guilty man has been able to get away with 
marked money. That game has never been beaten and 
never will be.” 

The private detectives waited impatiently until Billy’s 
confused brain would be able to tell a coherent story of 
his abduction. As yet the little fellow was dazed. Evi¬ 
dently he hadn’t as yet realized he had been the victim 
of kidnapers. His friends did not press him with ques¬ 
tions, confident his memory would clear within a few 
hours. It was the common opinion Billy had been 
drugged by the kidnapers just before they released him. 

The city detectives, however, were not working in 
the dark. Detective Bernhard, who had talked briefly 
to Billy before his departure from the hotel, had gone 
swiftly to police headquarters. There the entire force 
was waiting for him. With sparkling eyes he repeated 
the words that had fallen from Billy’s lips. 

“The whole thing is in our hands now,” he said. 
“The boy can’t remember much, but he can remember 
enough. A blind man could find the place he was hidden 


I IO 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


in after his description of it. The church, the hotel, the 
street cars—why, it’s easy! The hotel alone is enough. 
All we have to do is to locate the Thorpe Hotel—” 

“That won’t give us trouble,” interrupted another, 
officer. “I know the place. It’s on Prospect Avenue 
near East Twenty-second Street.” 

The words aroused the utmost excitement among the 
assembled detectives. They knew now for the first 
time that all through the past days of stress, days in 
which the police of many cities had been searching for 
Billy Whitla and his abductors, the boy had been held 
concealed almost at the very heart of the business dis¬ 
trict of Cleveland. The location of the Thorpe Hotel, 
as given by the detective, was just on the edge of the 
fashionable shopping district. 

Immediately there fell upon the minds of all the de¬ 
tectives some realization of the supreme daring of 
these desperadoes. The best criminal authorities in the 
country had been sure the boy was hidden in the suburbs 
of the city at least, more likely in some evil house of 
the slums. 

But now there was every indication the criminals had 
chosen a good neighborhood for the scene of their 
operations. If Billy’s memory was not serving the de¬ 
tectives falsely, this was certainly the case. It seemed 
incredible that the lair of the outlaws should lie within 
the very fingers of the police. But such proving to be 
the case, the task of tracking them down had in an in¬ 
stant changed from an intricate problem fit to match 
the shrewdest detective minds into a simple thing. 

The realization that the conclusion of the remarkable 
crime was likely to follow so closely upon the heels of 


THE ARREST OF THE KIDNAPERS. 


111 


the dramatic finding of the boy keyed the detectives to 
the highest pitch of excitement. That excitement was 
not any less intense because of the mystery that sur¬ 
rounded the abductors. For nearly a week now this 
reckless gang had held the country fascinated by their 
daring. Letter after letter they had sent, yet never re¬ 
vealing their strength, their identity or their hiding 
place. 

Who were they? What were they like? Unshaven, 
bloodthirsty thugs or polished, smooth crooks, deft of 
hand and brain? These were the questions the detec¬ 
tives were asking themselves. What was the strength 
of the gang? Caught in a trap, would they kill to gain 
their liberty? That this would prove true the officers 
did not doubt. Yet there was not a man on the Cleve¬ 
land force who did not hope he would be assigned to 
the hunt. 

Chief Fred Kohler, of the Cleveland police depart¬ 
ment, came to the meeting of the detectives and took 
personal charge of the operations to follow. 

The police, wise in the ways of criminals, believed 
that the kidnapers, contrary to what would seem the 
only sane course of action (i. e., to make their escape 
from the city as soon as possible), would spend three 
or four days in their “plant,” reassuring their craven 
hearts that danger of discovery was slight. Then, at 
the expiration of that time, they would bolster up their 
courage and quit the city, one by one. 

Thirty detectives, their blood bounding with excite¬ 
ment, left the station house in groups of two and three 
and went quietly to Thorpe’s Hotel. 

They instantly saw and recognized the goal. 


I 12 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


Across Prospect Avenue was a three-story apartment 
house—The Granger. There Billy had been hidden— 
there in a well known, respectable flat house in the very 
heart of the city, at a busy corner on one of the busiest 
streets! And again the detectives were forced to admire 
the daring of these criminals. 

Never for an instant was there a doubt in the detec¬ 
tives’ minds that The Granger was the “plant.” It 
fitted so perfectly with Billy’s incoherent descriptions of 
the place—“a big brick house with trees around it,” he 
had said, and at another time, “a hospital with three 
hundred rooms and thirty-five nurses.” There were 
private dwellings about The Granger, houses from 
which the Hotel Thorpe and the church might be seen, 
but none fitted Billy’s description of his prison. 

However, the detectives did not act precipitately. 
They wanted to be sure of their ground, before closing 
in on the abductors. That the criminals would fight 
for their liberty like cornered rats the detectives were 
sure. That the kidnapers were at that very moment 
within The Granger apartment house, there was little 
doubt in the detectives’ minds. Perhaps already the 
criminals had observed the group of men gathered at 
the Hotel Thorpe and knew their time had come. Each 
detective thoughtfully felt for his revolver and made 
sure it could be drawn quickly. 

The detectives worked with deliberation. First the 
houses in the vicinity were examined one by one. The 
good character of each was proven by investigation. 
The detectives collected again at the hotel. There was 
now nothing left but The Granger. But before going 
there the detectives first telephoned to police head¬ 
quarters. 


THE ARREST OF THE KIDNAPERS. 113 

They received word that Billy, on the train returning 
to Sharon, had given an additional description of his 
prison. 

Billy had remembered that there was a No. 2 on 
the door. He said there was a bay window, with stained 
glass above the white panes. The ceiling was cracked 
in places, he remembered. There was an iron bed and 
a folding bed and a couch. He had seen Hotel Thorpe 
from the bay window. 

The detectives heard the news with jubilation. The 
time of retribution was at hand! The hunters were 
keen to be in at the death. 

Detectives Bernhard and Moore, the two oldest de¬ 
tectives on the force, were selected as the pair to search 
the house. It was a task that called for bravery. The 
honor of the capture would fail upon them. Bernhard 
and Moore were given the task as a reward for long 
service. The others surrounded the flat building ready 
to stop anyone escaping—with a bullet if necessary. 

The morning was well nigh half over when the two 
detectives entered the front door of the building. They 
immediately looked for Suite No. 2. They found it on 
the second floor. There was an instant’s hesitation, as 
there flashed through the brain of each man hunter the 
exhilarating realization of the danger of their task. Be¬ 
hind the door confronting them might be half a dozen 
men, armed and desperate, ready to burst forth with 
fire and shot at the first hostile move. 

Each detective felt carefully for his gun. Then Bern- 
hard knocked on the door, knocked long and loudly so 
that the echoes rang down the corridor. 

There was no answer! 


I 14 THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. - 

Again the detective aroused the echoes by thumping 
on the door of No. 2. 

Again they waited with bated breath. Then sud¬ 
denly each detective started, thrilling in every nerve. 
For to their straining ears it seemed there came the 
slight sound of a stirring within the flat, a sigh, a 
whisper, then silence. 

The detective thumped again and from within, 
mingling with the raps, came the padding of naked 
feet. And immediately the rap was answered by a 
voice, the low, sweet voice of a woman from calm sleep 
—a modulated, musical, unafraid and, drowsy voice. 

“What is it?” 

“Will you open the door?” demanded Bernhard. 
“We are detectives, searching the house.” 

The men seemed to hear a sharp gasp. There was 
an instant’s hesitation. Then the key rattled in the lock, 
finally giving. The knob was turned and the door flung 
open. The detectives fell back as though they had sud¬ 
denly faced a blinding light. 

For there before them stood a beautiful woman clad 
only in a night dress, lazily rubbing one eye with a 
shapely hand. She was a beautiful creature with a round 
sweep of face to the point of a dimpled chin. The flush 
of sleep was on her brow, neck and bosom. Her thin 
garment scarcely concealed the full lines of her figure. 

From beneath her gown peeped a small foot, white 
as snow, encased in a hastily donned sandal. Her 
glorious red hair fell to her waist in one heavy braid. 

“Detectives?” she queried, sleepily astonished. 

The hunters fell back abashed. They had not been 
prepared for this. Fighting, bullets, even death they 


THE ARREST OF THE KIDNAPERS. 


115 

would not have shunned. But this was intrusion upon 
a lady’s boudoir. They stammered. 

“We are sorry we must disturb you. We are looking 
for certain parties. Our duty takes us through every 
apartment in this building. We hope you will pardon 
us.” 

There was a noise from the rear room and a man’s 
voice called: 

“What’s the matter, anyhow?” 

Next moment the owner of the voice came stamping 
into the room. He was clad in a dressing gown and 
slippers. His tousled hair and blinking eyes showed he, 
too, had been aroused from sleep. 

“We’re searching the building—” began the detec¬ 
tives. 

“Well, search ahead if you must,” growled the man. 

The detectives were bewildered. Surely they must 
have made a mistake. Hunted criminals could not act 
the genuine surprise shown by the woman, the testiness 
of the man at having his morning’s slumbers broken. 

The officers stepped within the suite. The woman, 
as if suddenly embarrassed by the presence of the strange 
men, stepped into the further room for a moment. She 
reappeared clad in a kimona. The brilliant colors of the 
garment only enhanced her beauty the more. 

But the room tallied precisely with the description 
given by Billy. There was the cracked ceiling, the 
stained glass, the couch, the folding bed and, beyond, 
the iron bed, which, had evidently been occupied until 
the knock aroused the tenants of the apartment. 

Bernhard stepped to the window and looked out. 
There he saw the street cars, just as Billy had said, the 


II6 THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 

church and the hotel sign in letters four feet high. The 
men were bewildered. Billy’s memory was photographic 
in its accuracy. That the men could readily see. Yet 
it was impossible to believe the real criminals could 
view the invasion of their “plant” with the polite, 
though drowsy, interest displayed by this woman, and 
the testiness over having his rest disturbed shown by 
the man. Yet there was the folding bed, the cracked 
ceiling— 

“Perhaps we can help you,” came in the musical tones 
of the woman’s voice. “We haven’t lived here so very 
long,” she volunteered, “and so we don’t know the peo¬ 
ple in the block intimately. But if you could tell us 
whom you are looking for?” 

“That isn’t necessary,” replied Moore curtly. He 
was vexed with his own uncertainty, angry that the oc¬ 
cupants of the suite did not betray guilt by frightened 
exclamation or overt action. But instead both the man 
and the woman stood looking at the officers with a show 
of polite interest that couldn’t quite conceal a wish that 
the intruders would leave. The man stood drumming 
on the mantel piece. The woman seated herself in a 
rocking chair, arranging her kimona over her bare feet. 

“How long have you been here, Mrs. -” began 

Bernhard. 

“Walters,” cut in the man impatiently. “We’ve 
been here about two weeks now, isn’t it, Helene?” 

“Two tomorrow,” replied Mrs. Walters easily. 

“What’s your business?” asked Bernhard. 

“I suppose your position allows you to ask that,” 
responded the man, with some show of temper. “I’m 
a traveling salesman.” 



THE ARREST OF THE KIDNAPERS. 117 

“Have you been on any trips lately?” 

“Not since we have lived here. I’ve been working 
the East Side of Cleveland. That’s why we took this 
furnished apartment. Nearer my work.” 

“What’s your line?” 

“Groceries.” 

The two detectives consulted together in whispers. 

“I don’t see how we can be mistaken,” said Moore. 

“Still, there are five other suites from which the 
hotel can be seen. Perhaps we’d better phone for fur¬ 
ther instructions. I’d hate to make a mistake and take 
in the wrong people.” 

“Perhaps you are right,” agreed Moore. “They 
can’t get away anyhow.” 

The detectives excused themselves and backed 
from the suite. When the door closed Bernhard 
stopped, hesitating. 

“It’s No. 2, all right,” he said. “I’ve half a mind 
to arrest them anyhow.” 

“We’d better wait,” said Moore. 

A moment after the detectives had departed the 
manager of the building, Miss Mills, knocked timidly 
on the door of No. 2. The red haired woman opened 
it again. 

“I hope this visit has not offended you,” she apol¬ 
ogized. “I can assure you this sort of thing has never 
happened here before.” 

“Oh, we’re not offended, Miss Mills,” replied the 
woman. “I’m sure the detectives were as uncomfort¬ 
able as we were. But whom do you suppose they are 
looking for?” 

“I haven’t the least idea, Mrs. Walters,” replied 
the honest Miss Mills. “In these days, though, you 


11 8 THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 

never can tell what’s going on. Maybe they are work¬ 
ing on this Whitla kidnaping case. Have you been 
reading about that poor little boy? The detectives are 
said to be following up all sorts of clues. Maybe that 
is what the detectives are looking for here.” 

“Oh, yes, I’ve read some of it,” replied the ten¬ 
ant. “One could hardly help that. There isn’t any¬ 
thing else in the papers to read, you know. Well, may* 
be you’re right.” And she closed the door. 

Fifteen minutes later the two detectives were at the 
office of the building, more bewildered than ever. They 
had visited every suite in the building. Some were al¬ 
most like that described by Billy. But the occupants 
of all these had proved to be old tenants in the build¬ 
ing. The detectives outside were getting impatient. 

“Now, Miss Mills,” said Moore, “we are look¬ 
ing for a suite containing an iron bed, a folding bed, a 
couch, a break in the ceiling, stained glass windows and 
from which the Hotel Thorpe sign can be plainly read. 
Is there such a suite in this building?” 

“Why you have just been in it,” exclaimed Miss 
Mills. “That describes No. 2 to a dot.” 

“Well then, let’s go back again,” cried Moore, 
springing to his feet. He was off to the stairs and up 
two steps at a time, Bernhard and the manager follow¬ 
ing. At the door of No. 2 he rapped imperatively, 
ready at last to make the arrest as soon as the door 
should be opened. 

But there was no response. 

“Hell!” breathed one of the detectives. 

A louder knock, firm, demanding! No response! 


THE ARREST OF THE KIDNAPERS. 119 

“Put your shoulder to it, Bernhard,” cried Moore, 
following suit. Miss Mills in trepidation stopped them. 

“Wait, I have a key,” she said. 

She fumbled at the ring until she found the right 
one. The detective thrust it in the lock and turned it. 
The door was thrown open. The men rushed in. One 
ran heavily to the rear of the apartment. The other 
stood guard at the door. 

The men met a moment later, impotent chagrin 
blackening their faces. 

The birds had flown! 

* * * * * * 

The anger of Chief Fred Kohler of the Cleveland 
police, at the failure of the detectives to capture the 
kidnapers was great. Moore and Bernhard, the vet¬ 
eran detectives of the department, were reduced in 
grade, compelled to take up again the ordinary police¬ 
man’s duties patrolling the beat in the suburbs. Their 
fall was the first of a series of misfortunes that attended 
those connected with the case. It seemed that mere 
contact with the crime was mysteriously fatal. 

For there was no longer any doubt that the man 
and woman who had occupied Suite No. 2 in The 
Granger were the abductors of Billy Whitla. The offi¬ 
cers found in the deserted flat a leather suitcase half 
filled with clothing, a nurse’s costume (which corre¬ 
sponded to Billy’s story that he had been in a hospital, 
and a jar of chloroformed candy (which explained the 
boy’s dazed condition). 

Late Tuesday night a saloon keeper named Patrick 
O’Reilly telephoned to the police that a man and a 
woman, whom he believed were the kidnapers of Billy 


120 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


Whitla, were drinking in his place at No. 2158 Ontario 
street. The pair were even then leaving to walk to the 
Public Square preparatory to taking a train leaving the 
city, he telephoned. 

Thirty minutes later Captain Shattuck, of the po¬ 
lice force, and Detective Wood were struggling at the 
door of the Central Police Station with a man and a 
woman, whom they were trying to arrest. 

The man had thick, square shoulders, and was 
smooth shaven. The woman had a heavy mop of red 
hair, that shook down over her shoulders as she fought 
for freedom. 

The man broke away and ran. Captain Shattuck 
fired his revolver after him. The man stumbled and 
fell. The officer was upon him. He got up passively. 

When the woman saw the man recaptured she 
turned on Detective Wood and cursed him volubly. A 
torrent of terrible French and English oaths fell from 
her lips. She threatened. She poured forth her pas¬ 
sion. Her red mane had shaken down. Rage oblit¬ 
erated her beauty. Thus she was taken into the sta¬ 
tion house. 

Later the prison matron found sewn in the red 
haired woman’s skirt the sum of $9,790 in $5, $10 and 
$20 bills—the same bills Attorney James Whitla had 
carried to Ashtabula and to the Cleveland candy store. 

That was Tuesday night—less than six days after 
gray eyed Billy Whitla was stolen from the East Ward 
school house! 


CHAPTER XV. 


THE WOMAN OF MYSTERY. 

How James Boyle Followed a Fair Face Into Crime 
and Pointed Out the Great Stone House . 

I N the early spring of the year 1908 those who fre¬ 
quented the gaudy wine rooms and dance halls of 
the cheaper sort in East St. Louis, Mo., grew accus¬ 
tomed to see a couple—a man and a woman—taking a 
prominent part in the extravagant merriment of the 
halls of vice. 

Who the Man or the Woman was those thrown 
into companionship with them knew little. Moreover, 
those of the wine rooms had little curiosity in the 
matter. In the world in which these people lived, 
those who adventure in love and dishonesty come mys¬ 
teriously and go silently. The population is a transient 
and an ever changing one. None knows whence the 
painted inhabitants come; none asks where they go. 
The time is always Now. There is no past or future. 

Some of the people of that world had seen the 
man before he became a fellow citizen with them. 
They had known him for a steady, hard-working chap 
named Boyle, who lived in East St. Louis. He was 
a plumber. He had his wild times, when he pursued 
drink and pleasure to the wine rooms. But he would 
stay only a few days. When soberness returned he 
would go back to his job and to the decent life he 
was living. 


122 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


Boyle was a man stolid in appearance. He was 
thick in build. When in drink his face and neck flushed 
a dull red. His actions were deliberate, his manner 
slow. He was a man of few words and this added to 
the impression of stolidity he gave. 

Those who saw him night after night at the wine 
rooms with the Woman marvelled. He did not seem 
to be the kind of a man such a woman would choose. 

For even in the world of sin she was a woman 
who attracted instant attention. Boyle was slow of 
speech and movement, but she was all life and sprightly 
chatter and vivaciousness. Her laughter was that of a 
delighted child. Indeed she was little more than a child 
in years. Her peace was that of a cat stretched lazily 
before the fire. But her passions were tigerish. And 
those who had drawn her wrath down upon their heads 
knew it was something scorching and terrible. 

She had brown hair that caught the lights and 
turned to burnished gold. Her body was lean and 
supple. Her face was that of a madonna. She might 
have stepped from an Italian painting, so pure and in¬ 
nocent were her features. She had a habit of look¬ 
ing shyly from under her lowered lashes. Her cloth¬ 
ing was always rich and extreme in style. Yet there 
was about it a good taste and sense of harmony not 
usually found among the women of the wine rooms. 
Sometimes her speech relapsed into French. She had 
a fondness for French words. This habit gave the 
inpression that she possessed an unusual education— 
another thing seldom observed among women who 
frequent the East St. Louis drinking places. 


THE WOMAN OF MYSTERY. 


123 


Those wise in the ways of the world observed 
this Woman and were afraid of her. Many women 
come to' the wine rooms. Most come because they 
have something to sell. Most have physical beauty to 
sell, but their brains are shallow. Some few others 
are clever in word and thought, but do not possess 
beauty. But when those who know the world find in 
the wine rooms a woman of surpassing beauty, and 
whose bearing and brain and manner are such that 
might enable her to scale social heights among honest 
people, they are afraid. For they know that such a 
woman has not come with any easily learned purpose. 
They know the clever wits of such a woman are turned 
to plan only evil. 

Some few knew that Boyle, following the influ¬ 
ence of this Woman, had turned from his honest life 
to sin. And those who knew this pitied him thor¬ 
oughly. For he was trapped, enmeshed, caught in the 
toils of fascination spread by an unscrupulous adven¬ 
turess. 

Boyle himself was oblivious of the dark pit to¬ 
ward which his feet were traveling. His eyes were 
fixed upon the brightness of the Woman’s eyes. He 
was overwhelmed with blind admiration for this won¬ 
derful creature who had come into his life. He was 
hers, tied hand and foot. She had only to bid; he 
would obey. 

Sometimes, when the wine had flowed freely, the 
Woman would spring to her chair, standing with one 
daintily shod foot upon the chair seat, the other resting 
lightly on the edge of the table. Her eyes would shine 
bright with the intoxication of the wine; her cheeks 


124 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


would glow. The daring pose and her rich, contralto 
voice would command instant attention. Then she 
would raise a brimmed glass of wine high above her 
head. 

“Listen, people!” she would cry, and her rich voice 
would carry to every corner of the silent room. “I am 
an actress and an artiste and a money getter!” 

Then everybody would laugh, for they had heard 
this boast before, and they knew that whenever the 
Woman made it the wine fumes were in her brain. 
Then there would be entertainment. All glasses would 
be drained. There would be cheers for the Woman. 

Then Boyle would nervously pluck at her dress 
to make her sit down. But his half whispered en¬ 
treaties were as nothing. The plaudits of the crowd 
were ringing in her ears now. She was not a woman to 
retire modestly from the lime light. So she usually con¬ 
cluded her boast by singing a song to the assembled 
merrymakers. 

As she sang, her voice, passionately throbbing, 
would fill the room with golden melody. It might be 
some yearning refrain remembered from more holy 
days. Then the listeners would stare absently at the 
floor or walls. Or else she would strike up some jin¬ 
gling ditty of the dance halls. Then hands would sway 
and feet beat in time. Or the crowd would catch up 
the chorus and roar it out. 

All the while Boyle would sit sullenly by, deign¬ 
ing not to applaud or sing. When the singer would 
finish men in the wine room would shout their approval. 
Drunken leers, frankly admiring the Woman’s physical 
attractions, would be turned upon her. Then jealousy 



The Great Crowd Welcoming Billy Back to Sharon 







The Crowd Greeting Billy on His Arrival in Sharon 





























































































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Crowd at the Whitla’s Sharon Home to See Billy After His Return 


























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Billy Makes a Speech to His Sharon Friends 




















THE WOMAN OF MYSTERY. I 25 

would burn dully in Boyle’s breast. The Woman would 
see his frowns and laugh. 

So they lived, the Man and the Woman, all one 
spring and summer and well into the fall. Married? 
Who knows? Boyle once took the Woman to his 
boarding house and introduced her as his wife. All 
anybody knew was that they lived together and ap¬ 
peared together in the wine rooms at night. 

“What is your real name?” Boyle asked her once. 

“What does it matter?” she asked in turn. Then, 
softening in her manner, she told him she had been 
christened Anna McDermott. 

Bit by bit—it took Boyle w r eeks of questioning— 
he learned much of her past history. Part of her life, 
however, she chose to leave a mystery to him, rely¬ 
ing upon his imagination to supply her with a career 
more remarkable than the one she had lived. 

Her father was not a rich man, she told him, but 
he had raised his family in comfort and had gained 
the respect of those who knew him. He had been a 
member of the Chicago fire department, but had re¬ 
tired. He was living in that city. She herself had been 
born there twenty-one years before. She had a brother 
and two sisters, all older than she. Her passion for 
excitement and adventure had been held in check at 
home, she told him. When she had finished the com¬ 
mon schools she had been sent to a convent in Wis¬ 
consin to complete her education. 

Boyle had earned his bread by manual labor. She 
liked to awe him with her superior talents and manner 
of living. She did not tell him she remained at the 
convent only five months. Instead she said she had 


126 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


studied music and the arts there. A smattering of 
French words, dropped occasionally by her, and her 
thrilling voice—its natural excellence was such that 
little training of it had been necessary—gave the man 
the idea her convent life had lasted for years. 

After she left the convent, she told him, her spirit 
demanded a wider place than the confines of her fa¬ 
ther’s home in Chicago. She dropped hints of the gay 
life she had led in the glittering cafes of Chicago. Half 
sorrowfully she told of the scene during which her 
aged father had ordered her never to darken his doors 
again. Tears, whether sincere or not, stood in her 
lovely eyes as she spoke. 

She played on Boyle’s jealousy by telling him of 
other men with whom she had consorted. He was 
forced to listen, while his heart was bitter with heavy 
hatred. There was one Parker—Frank A. Parker— 
of whom she frequently spoke. Parker, it seemed, was 
in prison, serving a two-year sentence in the Missouri 
penitentiary. There had been the matter of a check 
to which Parker had signed another man’s name. 

Boyle was sometimes required to mail letters from 
the Woman to Parker. He did her bidding apparently 
willingly, but inwardly hot with fury. The Woman 
told Boyle that Parker would be released after a few 
months. She might go back to him, she hinted, unless 
she should find Boyle of more use to her than Parker 
had been. Thus by insinuations and veiled threats she 
bound Boyle to her with chains of steel. 

She allowed Boyle glimpses of her past life—a 
life from which a few months before his honest soul 
would have recoiled in horror. But his thralldom to 


THE WOMAN OF MYSTERY. 127 

this Woman had thrown a halo of romance over all her 
criminal adventures. 

She and Parker, by a clever piece of fraud, had 
cheated a Kansas City restaurant keeper of $250. 
Parker had forged a worthless check for a large amount 
of money. By posing as a destitute widow she herself 
had defrauded tender hearted persons of many hun¬ 
dreds of dollars in Kansas City. 

Then she and Parker had come to East St. Louis. 
There they had “put across” many crooked deals, the 
last of which ended in the arrest of Parker for forgery. 
She told Boyle of a children’s governess who had dis¬ 
appeared from the home of H. Chouteau Dyer, a St. 
Louis lawyer. Immediately afterward the attorney 
found $6,000 worth of his wife’s jewels were missing. 
The governess’ name was Clara Stratton, but, the 
Woman said, she herself might know something of the 
affair. At any rate were not her clothes of rich material 
and in the latest style when Boyle met her? she asked 
him. Did she not wear jewels and spend money freely? 

“I am a money getter,” she boasted to Boyle. “You 
can be one too if I let you stay with me.” 

So she played on the man’s cupidity, on his self 
love, upon his egotism by continually weighing him 
against the absent Parker. By her half concealed con¬ 
tempt of his slow brain and dull hulk of body she threw 
over him a net of infatuation from which he did not 
even wish to escape. 

But secretly the woman’s thoughts were following 
an entirely different channel. Secretly she despised 
Parker, the clever man who had not been clever enough 
to escape detection. 


128 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


“Parker was a ‘piker’—a small game man,” ran 
her unspoken observations. “This man Boyle supplies 
what I need—nerve and endurance. I will train him, 
and then we will go after big stakes.” 

And the Woman read her own character aright. 
Outwardly she made a fine show of bravado. But her 
mock daring only served as a cloak to cover an inward 
cowardice as great as her face was beautiful. She could 
plan, Oh, so well! Had she the courage and the in¬ 
domitable will to carry her plans through she could 
startle the world with the daring and success of her 
criminal operations. But she lacked these two supreme 
essentials. In Boyle her crafty brain instantly recog¬ 
nized the ideal accomplice. He made up what she 
lacked. That hulking body of his would never shrink 
from danger. The subtle torture of unseen pursuit 
could never penetrate his slow faculties. 

With this Woman Boyle walked open-eyed into a 
life of crime. In the early fall of 1908 they moved on 
to Springfield, Ill. The Woman showed Boyle the easy 
way to ill-gotten wealth. She began by passing forged 
checks. Her beauty carried off the game where a man 
would have failed. Almost she was tripped up. The 
pair were arrested on one check. But Boyle’s past rec¬ 
ord as a steady man saved the pair from prison. 

The big game was not yet in sight. It had grown 
too hot for the Woman and her consort in the Missis¬ 
sippi River country. Their supply of money was get¬ 
ting low. No more fine dresses or jewels could be 
bought. The Woman was weary of small frauds. She 
was discouraged at the failure of her efforts to operate 


THE WOMAN OF MYSTERY. 


129 

successfully in Springfield. She wanted time to rest— 
and to think. 

Boyle had spoken of his boyhood home in Sharon, 
Pa. He was known as a sober, industrious fellow there. 
Would he take her to Sharon that she might be a daugh¬ 
ter to his mother—she who had never known a mother’s 
kind care? 

He would. He was touched by the appeal. On 
Thanksgiving Day, 1908, James Boyle walked into his 
mother’s house on Orman Avenue, Sharon, and intro¬ 
duced the Woman as his wife. 

All winter long they lived there—lived quietly, too, 
because they had little money left to spend. The 
Woman was planning, contriving the master stroke that 
would make their fortunes. Boyle was content just to 
be at her side. 

The pair took long walks about the streets of 
Sharon. The Woman was shown the sights of the city. 
She looked at the great, stone house. Millionaire 
Frank Buhl’s house. She saw the fair haired boy at 
play in the snowy yard. She observed him riding about 
Sharon with his rich, adoring uncle. She learned of the 
love the Buhls and the boy’s parents—rich, too—had for 
him. 

Once in the winter dusk they passed the stone 
house. They saw the mellow light of the warm luxury 
within sifting through the rich curtains and falling white 
upon the cold snow without. They stopped and gazed. 
They saw the light haired boy pass and re-pass the win¬ 
dow. Once a heavy hand patted his head. Once a 
woman’s tender lips brushed his in a caress. 


130 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


And without, in the cold and darkness, the 
Woman’s eyes gleamed craftily and in them came a 
light—the light of the lust for gold. Her brain had re¬ 
ceived the message from her eyes, and it planned and 
planned and planned. 

One day the Woman told her plan to Boyle. From 
him fled all pity and mercy and loving kindness before 
the scourge of his infatuation for this Woman. She 
owned him body and soul. He was her absolute, pliant 
tool. He consented to her plan with as little hesitation 
as though she had merely asked him to take her home. 
She put forth her hand and struck his as one man would 
to another. 

“My friend,” she said simply, “I like you.” 

Often had the Woman cajoled Boyle with endear¬ 
ing terms. Blindly, he had accepted them as the truth, 
unable to see the motive behind her flattery. But the 
genuine ring in that “My friend” thrilled him as caress 
of hers had never done before. 

On March 12, 1909, Boyle and the Woman bade 
good-bye to his mother, saying they were going to Den¬ 
ver, Col., to live. Instead they went directly to Cleve¬ 
land, where they rented a suite in The Granger apart¬ 
ment house. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


IN THE KIDNAPERS' DEN. 

The Mysterious Woman Soothes Billy With Lullabies 
But Tortures His Mother With a Cruel Test. 

O N the afternoon of Thursday, March 18, 1909, 
the Woman sat alone in the suite she and Boyle 
had rented in The Granger. She was trying to read a late 
magazine, but with little success. A hundred times she 
had thrown the book aside to pace the floor nervously. 
A hundred times she had peeped through the curtains 
at the busy street below. Each time she had returned 
to her chair and her magazine. 

The Woman was alone. And she was lonesome 
and afraid. The mask of bravado which she invariably 
wore in the presence of others had been dropped. Now 
she was face to face with her true self, the shrinking, 
timorous woman. 

The rooms were hideously quiet. Occasionally a 
street car motorman would clang his warning bell di¬ 
rectly below her window, and the Woman would half 
rise to her feet in startled terror. The sounds of the 
city traffic only served to make the silence of the rooms 
the more appalling. 

She tried to sing to dispel her loneliness, but the 
hollow echoes of her voice only clamored back at her 
and she stopped in affright. Suddenly she found her- 


i 3 2 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


self in a panic. The strain of sitting and waiting had 
become intolerable. 

Half unconscious of what she did, she undressed 
swiftly, put on her night robe and ensconced herself in 
her bed. She propped herself up on the pillows and 
again tried to read. In vain! Every unwonted noise 
in the building seemed fraught with terrors. Every 
whistle from the boats in the harbor, every sudden sound 
from the street below frayed her nerves. 

She dropped back and closed her eyes to invite 
sleep. Scarcely had she done so when there was a quick 
step in the hall without and a boisterous rap beat upon 
her door. 

The invading clamor of echoes froze the blood in 
her veins. Her skin tingled. She tried to call out from 
the bed, but from her mouth issued only a dry whisper. 
Then, with a mighty effort she mastered her nerves and 
went silently to the door. 

“Who is it?” she called. 

“Telegram,” came the announcement in a nasal 
voice. 

She almost sobbed in her relief. She turned the 
key and opened the door a scant inch. She took the 
yellow envelope and signed the book thrust in by a 
soiled hand. Then she closed the door, locked it has¬ 
tily and tore open the envelope. The message was from 
Boyle. 

“Missed train. Everything O. K. (Signed) R. G. 
Walters.” 

Walters was the name under which they had rented 
the suite. 



The Nurse’s Cap (the Round White Object) and Gown, the Jar of Drugged Candy and the Suit 

Case Containing the $10,000 Ransom—All Taken from the Kidnapers 










s 







Anna McDermott 
at the Age of 12 





IN THE KIDNAPERS’ DEN. 


*33 


The Woman glanced at her watch. It was shortly 
past two o’clock in the afternoon. Terror now had left 
her. The telegram had assured her the plot was work¬ 
ing out successfully. Billy Whitla was now in her pos¬ 
session. The most difficult part of the work—the ab¬ 
duction—was accomplished. 

She passed the afternoon quite happily, reading 
and singing to herself. For a while she napped peace¬ 
fully as a child. When it grew dark she prepared her 
supper. She partook of it leisurely. While she was 
eating the shouts of newsboys came to her ears. She 
listened to make out the cry. 

“Extra! All about the kidnaping!” was what she 
heard. She laughed with excitement. 

The Woman cleared away the traces of her repast. 
Then, though the hour was still early, she clothed her¬ 
self in the starched blue dress and white cap of a nurse. 
From a rouge pot on the bureau she dabbed her face un¬ 
til her cheeks and forehead were covered with red 
blotches. Then she sat down to wait. 

The minutes dragged themselves away. The 
Woman was impatient, but no longer afraid. She knew 
that once away from Sharon, nothing could stop Boyle, 
the man of iron nerve. 

At last a well known step sounded in the hall out¬ 
side the door. A key fumbled in the lock. 

“Is it you, Jimmy?” the Woman called softly. 

For answer the door opened and Boyle and a lit¬ 
tle boy who walked on his tiptoes, one finger to his lips 
for silence, entered. The boy was Billy Whitla. 


134 THE kidnaping of billy whitla. 

“I’ve brought you a little Jones,” he said, and 
both he and the Woman laughed. 

“Do the stairs go up to a really insane asylum?” 
asked Billy in a hushed voice, without waiting for the 
formality of an introduction. 

“Yes, indeed they do,” replied the Woman, and 
then she gathered the little chap up in her arms. “Isn’t 
he the dear, little fellow!” she exclaimed. 

Billy cautioned her to silence. 

“Jonesey told me they would come down and take 
me up to the asylum if we make any noise,” he said 
solemnly. 

Then “Jonesey” said he would go prepare some, 
supper for himself and Billy. While he was about it 
the boy regarded the Woman gravely. 

“Are you Mrs. Jonesey?” he asked. 

“Yes, dear,” was the reply. 

“Have you got the small pox, too?” he asked, 
scrutinizing the blotches of rouge on her cheeks. 

“Not any more, dear. I had it once,” she lied eas- 

iiy- 

“I wouldn’t like to get that,” he observed. “Sam 
had it once and it made little holes all over his face. 
My dad doesn’t want me to get like that. That’s why 
he sent Jonesey to take me away—so the doctor couldn’t 
come to take me to the pest house. My dad told 
Jonesey to keep me for a few days until the old doctor 
gets tired of looking for me. Then my dad is coming 
1 or me again and take me home.” 


IN THE KIDNAPERS’ DEN. 


135 

“I’m sure, dear, it will only be a few days,” she 
answered. 

Then the supper was ready and the boy ate heart¬ 
ily. He told “Mrs. Jonesey” about his trip: the long 
ride in the covered buggy, the trains and street cars he 
had been in. Altogether it had been one of the most 
eventful days of his life. After he had eaten his fill 
the weariness of travel showed upon him. His eyelids 
faltered. His head drooped. He asked to be put to 
bed. The Woman undressed him and tucked him in 
as tenderly as a mother might have done. 

Billy was asleep even before the bedroom light was 
turned low. Then the Woman came into the front 
room and talked in low tones with Boyle. 

He had followed her direction explicitly, he said, 
and everything had been easy. Under her instructions 
he had hired a horse and buggy at Warern. At Sharon, 
by sending into the East Ward school building the false 
note purporting to be from Billy’s father, he had had no 
difficulty in calling the boy out. 

Then he had told Billy the fabricated story of the 
small pox scare, as the Woman had directed him to do. 
Billy climbed into the rig without protest when Boyle 
had told him his father wanted him taken away so the 
doctors would not take him to the pest house as a small 
pox victim. First they had stopped to mail the letter 
demanding the ransom. Billy had addressed the envel¬ 
ope without suspicion. Then the boy had willingly 
crawled under the blanket hidden from the eyes of those 
who might know him. Billy had accepted the small pox 
story as true, and was doing all in his power to keep 
from being sent to the pest house. 


136 THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 

They had reached Warren too late for the train 
that was to carry them to Cleveland, Boyle told her. 
Accordingly he sent the Woman the telegram and pre¬ 
pared to come to Cleveland by another route. 

He hid Billy in a lumber yard in Warren while 
he went to look up the tran schedule, he said. On his 
way he stopped in a barber shop and was shaved. 

“That was foolish,” commented the Woman, “but 
go on.” 

“We took a train to Ashtabula and arrived there 
without meeting any trouble, though I know we were 
observed on the train,” continued Boyle. “It was dark 
when we reached Ashtabula. I ran against more hard 
luck there, for we had just missed the trolley car to 
Cleveland, and there wouldn’t be another for two hours. 

“It was dark by this time, so I took Billy to a 
restaurant and we had supper. Afterwards we took a 
walk around the town. I told Billy we were in New 
Castle, Pa.” 

“That was a good stroke, Jimmy,” murmured the 
Woman. “Really, you are improving all the time.” 

“We went to the public park,” said Boyle. “Flat¬ 
iron Park, they call it. There was where we spent most 
of our time, for the car leaves from that place. Billy 
is a great boy. He wanted to see everything. In fact 
I think he sees altogether too much for our good.” 

“I’ve thought of that already,” said the Woman. 
“Go on.” 

“He was greatly interested in the cannon in the 
park. He insisted that I lift him up so he could strad- 


IN THE KIDNAPERS DEN. 


137 


die it. When the car came we got aboard and didn’t 
leave it until we got oh right in front of the Granger 
here. Now what are we to do?” 

“It’s in the papers already,” said the Woman. “Go 
out and get one.” 

Boyle left the suite and soon returned with a news¬ 
paper. It was the Cleveland Press. Prominently dis¬ 
played on the front page was the advertisement: 

“A. A.—Will do as requested. J. P. W.” 

The Woman’s eyes sparkled with satisfaction. 

“He’s going to fall, all right,” she said. “Did 
you have Billy address other envelopes?” 

“Yes, I have three he addressed,” answered Boyle, 
fumbling in his overcoat pocket. He produced them. 
The Woman took one and went to the table, picking up 
a pad of paper. 

“I have a letter telling him we have seen his ad¬ 
vertisement and advising him that we will soon open ne¬ 
gotiations,” said the Woman. “Got it all written while 
you were coming. I haven’t bothered to disguise my 
hand much. That isn’t necessary, if I have this affair 
sized up right.” She folded the letter and placed it in 
the addressed envelope. “No need of identifying our¬ 
selves,” she said. “Billy’s handwriting does that for us. 
Now take this away about ten blocks and mail it.” 

Boyle was gone half an hour. When he returned 
the Woman said: 

“There’s nothing to do now but get some sleep. 
We’ll let them sweat tomorrow. It will be good for 


138 THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 

them—they’ll be keen to turn over the money after a 
few hours’ suspense. Come on. I’m going to turn in.” 

Boyle looked at her in admiration. 

“Say,” he said, “you’ve got the coolest nerve of 
any woman I ever saw. I don’t believe this thing wor¬ 
ries you a bit, and it’s life or worse if we get caught, 
too!” 

“Worry me?” laughed the Woman. “Well, I guess 
not. This thing’s going through. Trust your pal for 
that.” 

She had shaken down her luxurious hair and was 
braiding it for the night. It was a mass of golden red, 
but at the roots it showed dark brown. 

“Say,” said Boyle, “why don’t you wear it red that 
way all the time. It looks great.” 

4 I’d like to,” she admitted, “but I won’t dare after 
the kid’s gone. He’ll remember it too well.” 

“But don’t worry about his seeing too much,” she 
continued. “I bought a jar of candy for him just after 
you left yesterday. I soaked it so full of ether he won’t 
know half the time whether he’s here or at home.” 

“That was a good job of small pox painting you 
did on your face,” was Boyle’s irrelevant remark. 

And presently the lights in the suite were out. 

Next morning Billy was awake with the birds. 
Boyle and the Woman arose early, too, for they had 
much work to do. Billy displayed curiosity as to the 
house he was in. The Woman, dressed in a nurse’s 


IN THE KIDNAPERS’ DEN. 


139 


costume as she was, told Billy the suite was part of a 
hospital. 

He soon spied the jar of candy and, as the Woman 
had expected, immediately after breakfast asked for 
some. She took down the jar and told him to eat all 
he wished. The fumes of the drug with which the 
candy was saturated soon had their effect. After eating 
a few lumps Billy complained of being sleepy and was 
soon slumbering soundly on the bed. 

Then the Woman outlined her plan to Boyle. 

“All the other kidnapers there have ever been make 
me sick,” she said contemptuously. “The Ross boy’s 
kidnapers didn’t know how to play the game. They 
weren’t wise enough to get away with the goods at all. 
Pat Crowe had nerve, but he had to get the ransom with 
a lot of melodrama attachments—a lonely road, a lan¬ 
tern and all that. Now I’m going to play this game 
through and there won’t be any theatrics about the way 
I get the $10,000 either. 

“What we want to know first is whether Whitla 
and Buhl mean to play square. We have got to test 
them. That’s where most kidnapings go wrong. The 
kidnapers walk into traps. Whitla has got to show us 
that he’s on the level and then we will do business with 
him. 

“Your telling about that cannon in Ashtabula gave 
me an idea. The country expects some theatrics. Well, 
let’s give them some. It’s likely those dicks (detectives) 
Whitla has hired will catch your trail somewhat. They 
may even trail you to Ashtabula. But they can’t follow 
you after that. 


140 THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 

“We will make them think we are ‘planted’ in 
Ashtabula by framing up a fake delivery there. Have 
Whitla put the money in the cannon in the park. Give 
the public all the fireworks it wants. Then you can 
watch him and see if he is on the level. If he is we 
will fix up the real thing for him right here in Cleveland. 
I’ll write the letter now.” 

Boyle was delighted with the scheme. His ad¬ 
miration for the Woman’s plotting brain knew no 
bounds. The letter was written and Boyle instructed to 
mail it that night (Friday) and go directly to Ashtabula 
to wait for Whitla. 

Billy awoke and the Woman played with him. 
Somewhere in her warped, cruel nature there was a real 
and abiding love for little children. This strange crea¬ 
ture could adore a child and at the same time plot the 
utmost cruelties against its mother. 

She and Billy soon become great chums. The boy 
wanted to go to the window and see the street. 

“You mustn’t think of doing that,” warned the 
Woman. “The doctor might see you and then you 
would be taken to the pest house right away. Your 
papa wouldn’t like that at all.” 

That silenced Billy’s appeal. Whatever his dad 
said must be right. He continued his questions along 
another line. 

“But, Mrs. Jonesey,” he said, “can’t I even see 
around the hospital?” 

“No, dearie. The nurses wouldn’t like it.” 

Boyle took the Woman aside. 



Billy Mrs. Whitla Selina Whitla James Whitla 

THE REUNITED FAMILY 











































































































































' 





















♦ • 



































































































































































• ' SB 



























































* 



































































































• M 





































. 
















The Whitla Home in Sharon, Pa. 





























































The Great Stone House—Residence of Frank H. Buhl, Billy’s Millionaire Uncle 









































































• .. * 


















* 












































’ 














• 













* 



















* 








































•**. . 

1 






. 

















































Pat Crowe, the Reformed Outlaw and Kidnaper 















































. 

















































































































































. . 














































• • 































































































































- 



IN THE KIDNAPERS’ DEN. 


141 

“What about that sick woman across the hall,” he 
said. “She has a couple of nurses. Let him go to the 
bay window and he can see into the bay window of the 
sick woman’s flat. He can catch a glimpse of the 
nurses there and after he goes back home he will be 
positive he has been in a hospital. It will be a good 
thing.” 

“I wouldn’t dare let him go to the window,” an¬ 
swered the Woman. “He’d see a good many things be¬ 
sides nurses.” 

“With him doped up with that candy?” argued 
Boyle. “There’s no danger of him seeing anything.” 

Boyle’s advice prevailed and Billy was allowed to 
sit on the couch in the window and watch across for the 
nurses. He sat there fifteen minutes before a white 
capped nurse came to the window to read a clinical 
thermometer. 

But in those fifteen minutes Billy’s eyes had taken 
in a photographic memory of the street. 

“Don’t you do any work, Jonesey?” asked Billy 
innocently, after he came away from the window. 

Boyle flushed. Then he changed the subject has¬ 
tily. 

“Why don’t you write a letter home to your 
daddy?” he suggested. 

“That would be a good idea,” agreed Billy. The 
Woman brought him pencil and paper. “Now what 
will I say?” he asked. 

“Oh, tell him you’ll see him soon. Tell him about 
the hospital. Say what you saw from the window—the 


142 THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 

nurses. Say,” he changed his tone suddenly, “what did 
you see?” 

“Why, the nurses, and people and street cars and 
a church—” 

“You mustn’t tell him that,” interrupted the Wom¬ 
an. “Some doctor might get on to where you are. Call 
them trees.” 

“All right,” said Billy, and he began to scribble 
laboriously, screwing up his mouth as his pencil traced 
the letters. 

“I still think we made a mistake in letting him go 
to the window,” said the Woman, aside to Boyle. 

“Oh, no danger,” he assured her somewhat nerv¬ 
ously. 

The letter was written. Billy addressed an envel¬ 
ope to Whitla. The Woman took the letter, but be¬ 
fore sealing it she inserted the letter telling Whitla to 
go to Ashtabula. 

Boyle left at dark for Ashtabula. That night Billy 
was fretful. The drugged candy was making him sick. 
His lips quivered, but he was such a brave little chap 
he wouldn’t let himself cry. 

The Woman saw the little fellow was miserably 
lonesome and homesick. She picked him up in her 
arms and rocked him. She told him delightful chil¬ 
dren’s stories she had learned in a long distant past. In 
that rich voice of hers she sang quaint lullabies until 
the boy drowsed in her arms. He slept quietly all 
night. 


IN THE KIDNAPERS’ DEN. 


H3 


On Saturday morning she told him many other 
things about the hospital and the danger he was running 
that the doctors might find him and take him to the 
pest house. Under the wash bowl in the bathroom was 
a cupboard big enough for him to hide in. She told 
him to run for this place should anyone knock on the 
door at any time. He promised eagerly. 

There was soon an opportunity to put this precau¬ 
tion to the test. About noon Saturday someone did rap 
heavily upon the door. Billy scurried for the bath¬ 
room cupboard. The Woman, in a sudden panic of 
fear, closed the bathroom door and dragged her unwill¬ 
ing feet to answer the summons. 

She opened the door a crack and immediately a 
burly man shoved her aside and entered the suite. 

“What do you want?” she exclaimed, trying to 
subdue the terror that trembled in her voice. 

“I’m the gas man,” replied the burly individual. 
“Here, Mrs. Berger, you sign right here. Then give 
me the key to your house. I’ve got orders to turn off 
the gas.” 

“But I’m not Mrs. Berger,” she said, backing 
away so as to hide the rear part of the suite from his 
sight. “My name is Walters.” 

“Ain’t this No. 2, The Granger?” demanded the 
man. “I thought so. Well, my orders is to find Mrs. 
Berger at No. 2 and get the key to her house.” 

“I never heard of Mrs. Berger,” said the Woman, 
“and I don’t own any house. So you must be in the 
wrong place.” 


144 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


“Are you sure about that?” demanded the gas 
man suspiciously. 

“Of course I’m sure.” 

“Well, beg pardon, lady,” he apologized gruffly. 
“You see there’s so many tries to lie out of it we have 
to make sure.” 

He left. The Woman sank weakly into a chair. 
She suddenly found herself covered with perspiration. 
Billy came forth from the cupboard. 

“Was that the doctor?” he asked in his piping 
voice. 

“Yes,” she responded faintly. “He’s gone now. 
It’s all right.” 

“Another scare like that and I’ll wish this whole 
business was in the bottom of the sea,” she told herself. 

The two passed the hours pleasantly enough. 
Billy clamored for more stories and songs, and she hu¬ 
mored him. Saturday night he slept restlessly. In his 
sleep he kept calling for his “daddy.” About noon 
Sunday Boyle returned from Ashtabula. Billy was tak¬ 
ing a nap. 

“How did he act?” asked the Woman eagerly. 

“Like a lamb,” replied Boyle. “Like we were pay¬ 
ing him by the day. Put the money in the cannon just 
as you ordered in the letter I left at the hotel for him. 
But the hotel clerk got busy and read the letter before 
Whitla arrived. As soon as Whitla put the money in 
the cannon the whole park was surrounded by bulls 
(policemen). I walked right past therm Never 


IN THE KIDNAPERS’ DEN. 


145 


minded them at all. But it wasn’t Whitla’s fault the 
bulls watched the money. It was the hotel clerk.” 

“That doesn’t matter any,” said the Woman. 
“The main thing is that we know now he is playing 
on the level.” 

“The old man was considerably cut up about not 
having anything doing,” said Boyle. 

“Was he?” she cried, exultingly. “Then we can 
stop worrying about this affair right now. He’ll walk 
into our parlor now like a little man. 

“Tonight, Jimmy!” she cried. “Tonight we send 
the real letter. And tomorrow night we’ll have that 
little ten thousand right up here in the flat!” 

Then she outlined her plan. The letter to Whit- 
la was to direct him to some outlying store in Cleve¬ 
land. There he would receive another letter telling 
him to leave the money at a store within a few minutes 
walk of the first store. After they had counted the 
money and knew no pursuit was being made, they 
would send Billy back. 

“No melodrama about that, is there, Jimmy?” she 
asked proudly. “Directing him to the second store 
does away with any possibility of him being shadowed 
by the dicks. It’s easy, simply and safe. Now you 
take a ride around the city and find the stores for the 
business.” 

“Hello, Jonesey,” called Billy, who had been 
awakened by the man’s voice. 

Boyle stopped only long enough to pat Billy’s 
head, and departed again. 


146 THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 

The Woman’s shrewd brain had analyzed Whitla 
rightly. He came to Cleveland exactly as directed and 
was at the store at the time appointed. Then he fol¬ 
lowed the directions of the second letter, walked to 
the candy store and left the money. 

The afternoon was not more than half spent 
Monday when Boyle walked into the suite, carrying a 
flat package. The Woman sprang forward, stifling a 
cry of joy. 

“Is that it,” she whispered harshly, her eyes fixed 
upon the bundle. 

“Yes,” answered Boyle, shortly. “Hush. Not 
before him,” he cautioned, indicating the boy. 

Instead of giving Boyle his usual greeting Billy 
began to cry softly. 

“You said my daddy was coming for me yester¬ 
day and he didn’t come,” he wailed. “Then you said 
he would be here today. And he hasn’t been here at 
all.” 

“Don’t cry,” said Boyle. “I’ll tell you what we 
will do.” Billy stopped crying. “If that dad of yours 
doesn’t come for you by dark we will go and look for 
him.” 

At this interesting promise Billy exclaimed with 
joy, and contentedly began to wait for nightfall. 

The Woman had disappeared with the package. 
Presently she returned, triumph written in every fea¬ 
ture. 

“Every cent we asked for!” she whispered to 
Boyle. “Every cent!” 


IN THE KIDNAPERS’ DEN. 


H7 


Darkness came and no Whitla. Billy was keen 
to begin the search. The Woman dressed him to go 
out. She put his jacket over his red hemmed sweater. 
She found a cap for his head. Billy’s shoe strings had 
broken. She tied his shoes with white string. Finally 
she produced a pair of wide, steel rimmed spectacles 
for him. 

“We don’t want the doctors to see you,” explained 
Boyle. “They won’t know you with these on.” 

The Woman stooped and kissed Billy. 

“Good-bye, little fellow,” she said. “Have you 
had a good time?” 

“Pretty,” admitted Billy. “But I wanted to see 
my dad.” 

“Here’s something to remember me by,” she re¬ 
plied, unfastening an amethyst pin from her bosom and 
pinning it on the boy’s jacket. 

Then the strange pair left, Billy’s hand placed 
trustingly in that of Boyle. The man led the way 
through a dark passage in the cellar. Then the pair 
traversed many streets, following a circuitous route to 
the corner of Payne Avenue and East Thirtieth Street. 
As they approached that corner Boyle said: 

“Your daddy is waiting for you at the Hollenden 
Hotel, Billy. I will put you on a car that will take you 
right there. You can tell the conductor to let you off at 
the right place. Here is a note you can show to any¬ 
body if you can’t find the hotel. Don’t tell anybody 
who you are, will you?” 

“You just bet I won’t,” said Billy, stoutly. “I 
don’t want to go to the pest house.” 


148 THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


“That’s right,” said Boyle. “Tell anybody that 
asks you that your name is Jones. And ask to see Mr. 
Jones at the hotel. That’s the name your daddy expects 
you to use.” 

“All right,” agreed the boy. 

They were at the corner. When a car approached 
Boyle stepped back into the shadow and told Billy to 
signal it to stop. He did so. The motorman put on 
the brakes. Billy stepped on. 

Boyle saw him go into the car and sit down. Then 
the car roared down the street, out of sight of the man 
watching. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


THE RANSOM’S CURSE. 

The Fugitives Drown Fear In Liquor and Walk Into 
the Trap. 

I T was nine o’clock Tuesday morning when Boyle sud¬ 
denly started up in bed, wide awake. At first it 
seemed to his bewildered senses that he was alone. 
Then he perceived the Woman. 

She was sitting in a chair by the window of the bed 
room, clad only in her night dress. Her hair was down 
in a single heavy braid. On the portable gas stove 
which stood on the table beside her was a coffee pot al¬ 
ready simmering. 

The Woman, however, was engaged in a task. 
She neither kept watch of the coffee pot, nor was she 
aware Boyle had awakened. She was counting the 
$10,000 ransom money bill by bill, scrutinizing each 
closely. 

“Not a mark on it to identify it?” she mused. 

“I wish I had never seen a single bill of that money!” 
Boyle’s sudden exclamation made her turn quickly. 

“Oh, are you awake?” she asked. “What’s the mat¬ 
ter? Losing your nerve?” 

Boyle was evidently in a temper. 

“My nerve?” he asked, sarcastically. “You talk of 
me losing my nerve? If you hadn‘t lost yours we’d 
have ‘blown’ this place last night as I wanted to.” 


150 THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 

“Leave here with all this money?” she cried, for an 
instant showing the fear she could no longer conceal. 
“No, no. We couldn’t do that. Why the whole city 
is like a live wire. They’d kill us now if they caught 
us, kill us, do you realize that? No, no. We’ll wait 
here three or four days. By that time they will think 
we have escaped from the city, and we can leave for 
the Coast in safety.” 

“This business was all right until we got the 
money,” said Boyle. “Now I wish the cursed stuff 
were in the bottom of the sea. It’s going to get us 
now,” he cried wildly. 

“Oh, drink some coffee,” she replied, exasperated. 
“You’ll feel better then.” 

“I think you need something for your nerves, too,” 
he answered. “Look in the glass.” 

She looked, and realized he had spoken the truth. 
Great hollows showed beneath her eyes. Boyle’s face, 
too, was haggard. Neither had been able to sleep well 
after getting the ransom. Already the blood money was 
beginning to put its curse upon them. 

“Oh, we are all right as long as we don’t move from 
this spot,” she said, trying to reassure herself as much 
as Boyle. 

The pair, without dressing, forced themselves to 
eat breakfast. Both felt better after taking food. The 
Woman carelessly picked up a late magazine Boyle 
had bought for her before he left for Ashtabula. At 
one of the pictures—that of an actress—she uttered an 
exclamation. 

“Dosen’t this woman resemble me, Jimmy?” she 
asked; anything to take their thoughts away from the 


THE RANSOM’S CURSE. 


15 I 

pursuit that had already begun against them. Boyle 
examined the photograph. 

“A dead ringer!” he agreed. “What’s her name ?” 

“Helene Falkner,” she answered him. “Good name, 
too. I’ve always wanted to go on the stage. I’ve got 
just as good looks as this Helene Falkner. I would be 
a success, I’m sure.” 

The conversation dropped off again. In spite of 
themselves the fear of the hunted crept upon them. They 
were nervously conjuring up visions of arrest and retri¬ 
bution when, without warning, there came a loud knock 
on their door. 

Both looked at each other, spellbound. Then the 
Woman whispered sharply: 

“Into the bed, quick,” she hissed. “Go quietly. 
Maybe they’ll leave if we don’t answer.” 

Then the knock was repeated. 

“I’ll go,” said the Woman. “I’ll make myself, if 
you haven’t the nerve.” 

She turned the key. Two men entered. They said 
they were detectives. 

The heart of the Woman suddenly turned to lead, 
but with superb acting she managed to carry an air of 
sleepy indifference. 

“Very well, then, search the flat,” Boyle heard her 
say. Then he went to her. 

The pair knew they were fighting for their liberty, 
perhaps their very lives. They masked their panic and 
despair under an appearance of injured innocence. 

Without telling the criminals what they were seeking, 
the detectives looked about the suite for a few moments, 


152 


THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


gazed from the window intently, muttered an apology 
and left. As soon as their footsteps died away the 
Woman turned fiercely on Boyle. 

“You did this,” she accused him. “That’s what 
comes of letting the kid go to the window. Of course, 
he remembered and has told.” 

“We’ll get away yet,” replied the man. “But hurry. 
They may be back at any minute.” 

“Hurry? Where?” The Woman was trembling in 
pitiful fear. “I can’t leave here. I’m afraid, I tell 
you.” 

“You can’t lose your nerve now,” said Boyle harshly. 
“Get dressed, that’s all.” 

In a few minutes they were ready to leave. The 
Woman had donned a heavy veil, which concealed her 
features. Greedy for the money even in her terror, she 
insisted on keeping the $10,000 on her person, giving 
Boyle only $100. 

“Where will we meet?” gasped the Woman. 

“Take a market basket and leave as though going to 
market,” he ordered. “Go to the grocery store on Cen¬ 
tral Avenue. I will meet you there. Leave by the front 
door. I will pass out through the celler. Hurry, now.” 

“I can’t, Jimmy,” she wailed. “Suppose one of us 
should be caught. Oh, I can’t!” 

“Be still. I’m going to open the door.” 

She stifled her terorr. Boyle pushed her out ahead 
of him and locked the door behind them. 

The Woman walked down the stairs and out the front 
door, past a score of detectives, who, having never seen 
her, made no attempt to stop her. 


THE RANSOM’S CURSE. 


153 


Boyle left by the secret passage through the cellar 
without being molested. When he reached the grocery 
store a scant five minuts later, he found the Woman 
waiting for him. 

They started toward the business section of the city, 
walking. At the first saloon Boyle turned in, drawing 
the Woman after him. 

“Not that now, Jimmy,” she pleaded. “We must 
keep sober above all things.” 

“I’m running this game,” he said masterfully. “We’ll 
need plenty of booze to carry us through what’s ahead 
of us.” 

They sat down at a table and ordered drinks. Both 
took whiskey. 

This visit was repeated several times on the way to 
the heart of the city. Their quickly formed plan had 
hern to mingle with the crowds at the market. There 
they would be free to contrive some scheme of escape. 

But under the influence of the liquor both threw cau¬ 
tion to the winds. 

“Haven’t I got lots of money, Jimmy?” asked the 
Woman. “Well, what’s money for? To spend. And 
I’m going to spend some right now. I need clothes 
and so do you.” 

They abandoned their market basket and proceeded 
to the shopping section of the city. The Woman 
bought an elaborate wardrobe, which she insisted upon 
wearing away from the stores where she bought it. 
Boyle purchased a new suit of clothes. 

Presently the false courage produced by the liquor 
died away. They saw newspapers black with headlines 


154 THE kidnaping of billy whitla. 


telling the details of the search for them. Their de¬ 
scriptions were printed. Panic seized them. With their 
heads bent low they made their way to the saloon of 
Patrick O’Reilly, at No. 2158 Ontario Street. Once in¬ 
side the saloon they breathed more free. 

The blood money was cursing them now, beyond 
what they had ever dreamed. In their distorted fancy 
they seemed to see a pursuer in every shadow. Their 
fear made each person they met an avenger. 

They had scuttled into the haven of the saloon like 
rats beaten into a corner, ready to turn upon their pur¬ 
suers in a last desperate fight for life. It is true they 
had no way of knowing the pursuit was rapidly closing 
in upon them. But in some strange manner the shadow 
of impending disaster bore down upon their senses. 

Afraid to stir from the place, dreading lest each new 
arrival at the saloon should prove to be the avenger, 
this wretched pair could only drink and drink, pouring 
down the liquor in the hope it would make them forget 
their desperate plight. 

As night came on they felt a frantic desire for com¬ 
panionship. Perhaps they reasoned they would be less 
liable to suspicion if drinking in company with others. 

At an adjoining table sat what had once been a wom¬ 
an. She was a pitiable drab of the streets, an outcast 
even from the world of sin. She was torpid with drink. 

It was the mad whim of the Woman to make friends 
with this wretched creature. In her sweetest manner, 
as yet unaffected by drink, the Woman invited the out¬ 
cast to share her dissipation. The creature staggered 
over to the fugitives’ table. She began to mumble 


THE RANSOM’S CURSE. 


155 


drunkenly. The fugitives laughed hysterically at the 
drab’s pitiful attempts at conversation. 

Now at last an outraged Heaven was striking with 
the mighty hand of retribution. It seemed a fatal thing 
even to come in contact with the kidnapers. The thing 
of the gutters soon staggered from the table. Before 
the next day dawned the police found her—dead, a vic¬ 
tim of her own excesses. 

It grew dark. Boyle and the Woman left stealthily 
for a restaurant. They soon returned, sighing in relief 
when they gained the shelter of the saloon. 

The place began to fill up with nightly visitors. The 
spirits of the fugitives rose higher as the wine flowed. 
The sense of having money gave them a feeling of im¬ 
portance. They spent their ill-gotten gains freely. 
There was merriment in the place. 

Suddenly the shouts and laughter hushed at the sight 
of the red haired Woman standing on her chair, one 
dainty foot resting upon the edge of the table. She 
raised a glass above her head. 

“Drink to me!” she cried. “I am an actress and an 
artiste and a money getter.” 

There was much applause as glasses were drained to 
her. Boyle succeeded in drawing her down to her chair 
before she had time to sing the song that usually fol¬ 
lowed this declaration. But this time no jealousy 
showed in his face. Instead there was fear, terror which 
even the fumes of the liquor could not stifle. 

Boyle strolled over to talk to the proprietor, O’Reilly. 
O’Reilly had known Boyle in years past. He knew 
Boyle’s home was in Sharon. He had never seen the 


156 THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHlTLA. 


plumber with so much money before. His suspicions 
immediately told him Boyle was the kidnaper. The 
mystery of the abductors was engrossing the public mind. 
O’Reilly’s deduction came naturally. 

Boyle inquired about trains leaving Cleveland. He 
asked O’Reilly if he could board through-trains in any 
of the Cleveland suburbs. On being informed in the 
negative Boyle walked back and sat down beside the 
Woman. 

The hour grew late. Again Boyle questioned O’Reilly 
about trains. He learned of one leaving for Chicago 
within an hour. The abductor spoke to the Woman 
and she arose from her table. Boyle made no attempt 
to conceal the fact that the two of them were starting 
for the depot. They bade O’Reilly good-bye and left. 

A minute later the saloonkeeper was at the telephone 
talking to police headquarters. 

Four blocks away from the saloon a hand clutched 
Boyle’s shoulder from behind. At the same instant the 
Woman was seized by both arms. She twisted about 
until she could see the star of a detective. Then she saw 
a blue coated officer struggling with Boyle. 

She whirled about with one effort and spat venomous 
curses upon the detective. She poured out a flood of 
oaths in French and English. 

The pair were trapped at last! 

At the police station Boyle gave his name as Jones. 
The Woman chose the name Helene Falkner—the name 
she had seen in the magazine a few hours before. 



Pat Crowe, the Cudahy Kidnaper, and His Baby 











































CHAPTER XVIII. 


THE WAGES OF SIN . 

The Kidnapers Are Brought to Trial and a Crushing 
Doom Falls Upon Them. 

H ER first paroxysm of baffled rage spent, the 
Woman assumed an attitude of sweet indiffer¬ 
ence which she held up to the hour of her trial. She 
called herself the Woman of Mystery. She passed 
through the ordeal of hours of police questioning, yet 
never once was she entrapped into revealing a single 
glimpse of her past life. The man maintained an air 
of sullen stupidity the police could not penetrate. 

Yet the efforts of the detectives in unveiling the wom¬ 
an’s past were successful. By the time of the trial in 
May they were in possession of all the important facts 
connected with her remarkable career. Boyle’s life was 
easily learned. 

The arrest of the pair was the cause of great public 
satisfaction. Once more parents could breathe easily, 
knowing the abductors of Billy Whitla were taken; that 
they would never attempt their heartless crime again; 
that the example of their failure would prove a valuable 
deterrent upon other criminals who might otherwise 
have imitated the pair had they succeeded in making 
their escape with the $10,000 ransom. 

Mobs of women jeered the red haired woman as she 
was taken to the train to be transported to Pennsylvania 


158 THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


for trial. All along the route great crowds collected in 
the hope of catching a glimpse of the criminals through 
the car windows. There were many threats of violence 
but no overt acts on the part of the crowds. The pair 
were taken first to Pittsburg and then delivered sep¬ 
arately to the Sharon jail. Later they were transferred 
to the jail at Mercer, the county seat of Mercer county, 
in which Sharon is situated, to wait for trial to be. 

The people, though maintaining a bitter hatred 
against the perpetrators of the crime against the Whitla 
home, did not attempt to impede justice. That would 
be severe enough upon the heartless criminals. 

And so the criminal career of the Woman and Boyle 
came to an end. 

Whitla took Billy and the family for a two weeks’ 
outing at Atlantic City, where the bracing sea breezes 
brought strength to the bodies that had been shaken in 
the terrible experience through which they had passed. 

* * * * 

For a month the strange pair—James Boyle and the 
Woman—the kidnapers, remained in the Mercer county 
jail. Boyle’s thick shoulders took on a slight stoop 
as the result of confinement, but that was the only sign 
that betrayed the fear that was in his heart. For the 
rest he was the slow moving, slow speaking, stolid 
Boyle of the East St. Louis wine rooms; the same dull 
fellow whose very stupidity, feigned though it might 
be, had baffled the Cleveland detectives. What few re¬ 
marks he made displayed a brutish cynicism. 

But the Woman—she smiled and she wept, she 
dressed dolls and sang songs to the little daughter of 


THE WAGES OF SIN. 


159 


Sheriff Chess, of Mercer county, one hour, and the next 
she would be railing against the world for what she 
called its unjust treatment of her. When confronted 
with evidence bearing upon her past life, she only 
laughed, as though the charges of former crimes were 
too trivially untrue to warrant interest. 

“I am still the Woman of Mystery,” she boasted 
brazenly in the face of unshakable facts. 

And so, strange, enigmatic Woman as she was, she 
taunted and cajoled her captors; she wrote mysterious 
manuscripts which she said were true accounts of her 
life; she hinted darkly that a third person had plotted 
the kidnaping of Billy, and that she and Boyle were but 
catspaws for an arch criminal; she begged pathetically 
for sympathy; once she raged and cursed when brought 
face to face with the Dyer family of St. Louis, who had 
lost their jewels when a servant disappeared. In a hun¬ 
dred ways she displayed her unruly temperament. She 
revelled in publicity as a child would indulge itself in a 
new and delightful game. 

“They can never convict me of anything here in 
Pennsylvania,” she cried confidently. “I wasn’t in 
Pennsylvania when Billy was taken. If I wasn’t here 
then I can’t be convicted of kidnaping, can I?” 

And at another time she said: “Never fear, I will 
not see the inside of the penitentiary even if I am con¬ 
victed.” 

“You mean—” began one who was with her. 

“Just that,” she said, closing her eyes and crossing 
her hands upon her breast. “Just that. I’ll kill myself 
first.” 


l 60 THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


It soon became apparent to the public that Boyle 
was to be the one upon whom the rage of the country 
was to be vented. The Woman was to receive compara¬ 
tively light punishment. And presently this thought 
dawned upon the slow mind of Boyle, and his wrath 
blazed forth. 

“They’re making me the scapegoat,” was his ag¬ 
grieved cry. “I didn’t have much to do with this. But 
I’m the one that has to stand all the punishment. I 
won’t endure it. I’m going to tell all I know, that’s 
what I’m going to do.” And to make good his threat 
he wrote out what he said was the true story of the 
kidnaping plot. 

He said he had discovered a certain man in Youngs¬ 
town leaning over the body of a dead victim, extracting 
letters from a pocket. Boyle said he himself obtained 
possession of several of these letters and subsequently 
used them to blackmail the murderer. Finally Boyle de¬ 
manded $5000 hush money, he said. The alleged mur¬ 
derer could not raise the money, but suggested the kid¬ 
naping of Billy Whitla, promising Boyle half of the 
$10,000 ransom. 

Boyle’s story was immediately investigated. The kid¬ 
naper had named names in his story. The matter was 
sifted through and through and found to be absolutely 
without truth. 

Boyle’s trial was set for May 6, 1909, and the trial 
of the Woman was to follow immediately. The trial 
was before Judge Williams, of Mercer county. 

Boyle came into the court room on the morning of 
May 6. He was represented by Judge Miller, a well 
known attorney of Sharon, and by W. S. Anderson, of 


THE WAGES OF SIN. l6l 

Youngstown, one of the best criminal lawyers in Ohio. 
Attorney J. C. Cochran was employed by Whitla to 
assist the prosecution 

The case was soon over. Billy, his father, trainmen, 
barbers, street car conductors testified, tracing Billy’s 
movements from the moment Boyle took Billy from the 
East Ward school house until he was captured after leav¬ 
ing O’Reilly’s saloon. Not a link in the chain of evi¬ 
dence was missing. 

Boyle offered no defense. He was keen to go on the 
stand and recite his story of the arch criminal who had 
plotted the crime, but his attorneys would not allow the 
man to testify to this slanderous fabrication. The jury 
was out only a few minutes. They returned with the 
one word: 

“Guilty!” 

The man tried hard to control himself. But his 
knuckles went white, so hard were his hands clenched, 
and a wave of pain for an instant contorted his stoical 
features. 

Even while the Boyle jury was deliberating, another 
jury was being selected to try the Woman. She her¬ 
self conducted the selection of jurors. She insisted upon 
having young men on the jury, doubtless thinking her 
beauty would appeal to the sympathies of young jurors. 
She smiled sweetly upon each juror chosen. 

By the time her jury was selected it was evening and 
the trial went over until next day. 

The trial of Mary Doe, as she was termed in the 
indictment, occupied little more time than the Boyle 
case. The same witnesses rehearsed their testimony. A 
principal witness was Detective Wood, of Cleveland, 


162 THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 

who testified the Woman had boasted to him she had 
planned the kidnaping. 

Boyle, already convicted, sat through the Woman’s 
trial. Once he created a scene, when he suddenly gave 
way to his blind, helpless rage, and broke the order of 
the court room by shouting a demand to be heard on the 
witness stand. He wanted to tell the story his own at¬ 
torneys had discredited by investigation. 

“I haven’t had a fair deal,” he cried. “I 'want to 
know where I get off at.” 

Court attaches silenced him and the case went on. 
As in Boyle’s case the defense of the Woman offered 
no testimony, depending upon argument that the 
Woman was guilty of no crime in Pennsylvania. Court 
adjourned and the arguments were heard Saturday 
morning, May 8. 

They availed the Woman nothing, however. The 
jury was out even a shorter time than in Boyle’s case. 
On the first ballot one man voted for acquittal. The 
second ballot he changed for guilty. 

The Woman’s face merely paled when the verdict 
was announced. She was led back to jail through a 
crowd of taunting women. The Woman held her nerve 
until she regained her cell. Then she sunk upon her 
prison cot, she buried her face in the pillow and the frail 
bed shook. 

* * * * 

It was the hour of Doom! 

On Monday morning, May io, 1909, both prisoners 
were brought before Judge Williams for sentence. Both 
had fought against the coming of this moment. Early 
Monday morning the sheriff had found a razor in 


THE WAGES OF SIN. 


163 

Boyle’s cell. The Woman on Sunday night had taken 
an overdose of morphine, but not enough to cause death. 

The gray light filtered in through the court room 
windows. The crowd that had mocked the Woman 
earlier in the trial was met. There were those there who 
did not care to look upon those so soon to hear their 
fate. This Man and this Woman had grievously of¬ 
fended against the Laws. Society had been injured. 
The people had showed their rage against these viola¬ 
tors of the Home by word and menacing gesture. 

But now all was over. Every evil plot had failed. 
Every unholy purpose had been thwarted. The Law 
had been vindicated. The moment had come when the 
wrath of the Law and Society should express itself. 

Those in the crowd did not care to look upon the 
faces of those so soon to meet their doom. After all, 
this was a man and this was a woman. The spectators 
dreaded to hear the sentence, yet were held in morbid 
fascination. 

One after the other the judge commanded the pris¬ 
oners to stand. 

“Have you anything to say?” the judge asked in a 
voice gray and colorless as the dripping rain outside. 

“Not a word,” was Boyle’s stoical answer. 

“I think the evidence was very flimsy,” said the 
Woman with what apparently was her usual flippancy, 
though her lips were drawn with fear. 

Judge Williams paled, shrinking from the task be¬ 
fore him. 

“The ancient Hebrews and Romans punished kidnap¬ 
ing with death,” said he monotonously. “The evi¬ 
dence is plain against you.” 


164 the kidnaping of billy whitla. 

And then, as though the avenging hand of Heaven 
had struck down, he sentenced each to the limit of the 
Law. 

For Boyle, imprisonment for the rest of his life. 

For the Woman, to pay a $5000 fine and suffer im¬ 
prisonment in the penitentiary for twenty-five years. 

The crushing blow fell upon them and at last broke 
down the indifference they had shown. 

Boyle cursed the judge in low half-whispers. 

The Woman, her bravado wilted at last, grew whiter 
and whiter, finally dropping senseless upon the arms 
of the deputies leading her from the room. 

Late Monday afternoon the two were hurried by 
train to the Alleghany penitentiary. And that night, 
all identity lost, all contact with the world of men and 
women severed, Boyle and the Woman in misery and 
despair faced the awful years they must pay for the kid¬ 
naping of Billy Whitla. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


GUARD AGAINST KIDNAPERS. 

Teach Children io Shun Strangers—Urge Severe Laws. 

A FTER her baby was returned safe from the 
clutches of his abductors Mrs. James Whitla 
gave advice to all other American mothers how to keep 
their little ones from being kidnaped. These were the 
rules she formulated from her own terrible experience: 

Don’t permit your boy to make friends with every 
stranger who comes along. 

Don’t let him go anywhere at any time without his 
first convincing you that no harm will befall him. 

Don’t ever permit him to miss a meal at home with¬ 
out first securing your permission. 

Don’t ever go away without first satisfying yourself 
that the person you leave your child in charge of is com¬ 
petent to take care of him. 

Don’t even let him go the length of a block with a 
person you do not know. 

Don’t let him admit a stranger to the house while 
you are away. 

In addition to the rules set forth by Mrs. Whitla, 
parents should remember that small children abducted 
have invariably been taken away from home. 


1 66 THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 

Children should be cautioned and drilled until they 
realize they must not permit advances of men unknown 
to them. 

The American nation is too prone to build iron vaults 
to keep its gold from the avarice of criminals, but its 
children, who can be made valuable as gold in the hands 
of unscrupulous outlaws, are permitted to wander at 
will. 

It is seldom a child is deliberately snatched up and 
borne away by the kidnaper. This is too hazardous a 
way in which to make an abduction. The criminal in¬ 
variably tries to entice the child away by promises of 
candy or presents. In this way the child victim goes 
willingly with his abductor and causes no trouble on 
the way. 

If it can be impressed upon children that never, under 
any circumstances whatever, must they accept money, 
candy or presents from strange men or women, there 
will be fewer abductions. Children should be trained to 
tell strangers to go away whenever advances are made 
to them. By refusing to talk to strangers children will 
run no risk of being tempted away. 

But more than training for our children we Ameri¬ 
cans need to examine our laws. Are they severe enough 
upon the kidnaper? 

When Pat Crowe abducted Eddie Cudahy in Omaha, 
Neb., kidnaping in that state was not even punishable as 


GUARD AGAINST KIDNAPERS. 167 

a misdemeanor. After the kidnaping was accomplished 
the legislature passed severe laws against the crime. 
After the horse was gone they locked the barn. But 
the fact that there was no law against kidnaping when 
Eddie Cudahy was stolen was one of the principal rea¬ 
sons why Pat Crowe was never convicted of the crime. 

There was a mighty hullabaloo after the Cudahy 
crime. The people of many states awakened to the fact 
that there were no laws against the crime. The result 
was many legislatures proceeded to pass laws. After 
that they forgot all about the rare crime of child steal¬ 
ing for ransom. 

The Whitla case has caused another awakening. And 
now we may well ask: Are our laws severe enough ? 

In Pennsylvania the penalty for kidnaping for ran¬ 
som is life imprisonment. But the kidnapers had only 
to take Billy the few miles across the Ohio line to find 
themselves in a state where the maximum penalty for 
kidnaping is twenty years in the penitentiary. Thus by 
operating in two states the criminals confused justice. 
Had the life penalty prevailed in both states it would 
have mattered little which state had jurisdiction in the 
matter. 

Nothing less than life imprisonment—that should 
be. the slogan of the American people. Indeed, since 
the kidnapers usually threaten death for their little 
victims, it is a question whether the death penalty would 


1 68 THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 

be too severe. Surely the criminal who plans to com¬ 
mit murder if his demands be not met is at heart as 
guilty a wretch as the actual murderer for gain. 

But whether life imprisonment or death be the proper 
penalty, the American people should not rest until such 
laws are written on every statute book in the land. Not 
until that time can American homes count themselves 
safe from their supreme enemy—the kidnaper. 


CHAPTER XX. 


THE CHARLIE ROSS CASE . 

The Tragic Story of a Kidnaped Boy Who Was Never 
Found . 

'T V HE disappearance of Charlie Ross was the great- 

A est kidnaping mystery of American history. 

On the morning of July i, 1874, Charlie Ross was 
abducted by two men from the street near his father’s 
handsome home in Germantown, Pa., a suburb of Phila¬ 
delphia. The little fellow, who was but four years old, 
was lured away by the promise of firecrackers for the 
Fourth of July. 

Christian K. Ross, the boy’s father, at once secretly 
took the position he would not “compound the felony” 
by acceding to the demand for $20,000 ransom that 
soon came from the abductors. He believed that by 
refusing the money he would force the kidnapers to 
release the boy, for whom they would no longer have 
any use. 

In that plan he was unsuccessful. Many letters were 
received from the kidnapers. Finally the father in 


170 THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 

desperation decided to pay the ransom. But the time 
had passed during which this was possible. Plans were 
made to deliver the ransom, but they could not be car¬ 
ried out owing to the state of public excitement. 

Months passed. Nothing was heard or seen either of 
the kidnapers or of Charlie. The police suspected 
Joseph Douglass and William Mosher, both known 
criminals. The police gained a supposed ally in Wil¬ 
liam Westervelt, brother of Mosher’s wife. He pre¬ 
tended to be helping in the search. Instead he was 
keeping the kidnapers in touch with the pursuit. 

The police frequently caught glimpses of Douglass. 
But never did they see Mosher. Ross was unwilling 
that Douglass alone be arrested for fear Mosher would 
kill Charlie in revenge. 

The summer home of Judge Van Brunt, of the Su¬ 
preme Court of New York, was at Bay Ridge, Long 
Island. Adjoining was the residence of I. Holmes Van 
Brunt, his brother. The judge had vacated his home 
for the winter. 

At two o’clock on the morning of December 14, 
1874, the burglar alarm in I. Holmes Van Brunt’s 
house began ringing, indicating someone had entered 
the vacant home of the judge. Van Brunt and his son 
went to the summer home. 


THE CHARLIE ROSS CASE. 171 

They saw a light flickering past the windows. At 
the approach of the Van Brunts the light was extin¬ 
guished. Presently a man emerged in the dark from 
the cellar way. 

“Halt!” cried Van Brunt. 

Two pistol shots were the answer. Van Brunt fired 
squarely at the figure with a shot gun. A cry of agony 
followed. 

Then another figure darted from the cellar way and 
fired at Van Brunt. The second man then ran for the 
front of the yard, colliding with young Van Brunt. The 
desperado was about to kill the boy when the father 
shot him down. 

It began to rain heavily. Father and son ran to the 
cellar way, where they could hear groans. They found 
a man terribly wounded. They brought the desperado 
a drink of water. He forced his lips apart to speak. 

“It’s no use lying now,” whispered the dying man. 
“I am Joseph Douglass. That is William Mosher. 
We stole Charlie Ross from Germantown.” 

“Where is the boy now?” asked Van Brunt eagerly. 

“Mosher knows. I don’t. Ask him,” gasped Doug¬ 
lass and sank back lifeless. 

They ran to the other man and turned up his face to 
the rain. He was dead. 


172 THE KIDNAPING OF BILLY WHITLA. 


Whether the pair killed Charlie Ross or whether the 
boy grew to manhood in ignorance of his identity was 
never known. Charlie Ross was never found. 

Westervelt was tried as an accomplice and sentenced 
to seven years in the penitentiary. 


HOW I KIDNAPED 

EDDIE CUDAHY 

By PAT CROWE 















THE PROPHECY. 

I T was a hot summer day in July. The sun’s rays 
beat down with relentless fierceness upon the brow 
of a wandering Hebrew peddler, as he journeyed along 
a dusty country road. His weary stride led him past 
a farm house, set back in the cool shade of a clump 
of pleasant trees. The stranger looked longingly at 
the house as though wishing rest and refreshment. 

He entered the short lane leading to the house, 
passed the beds of moss and roses that ornamented the 
dooryard, and finally reached the front porch. He bade 
the time of day to a middle-aged woman who sat in an 
old-fashioned arm chair knitting, while with one foot 
she rocked a cradle to and fro. 

Unfastening the heavy pack from his back, he laid 
it upon the porch. Then sitting down beside his burden, 
he wiped the perspiration from his wrinkled brow and 
asked the lady for a drink of fresh water. At once a 
little girl appeared in the doorway and handed him a 
large tin dipper, which she had filled with cool water 
from the well. The mysterious stranger seemed greatly 
to relish the refreshing draught. 

After resting a few moments in silence, he arose, 
and while fastening the pack on his back his eyes seemed 
riveted upon the infant. Turning and pointing at the 
cradle with his brown hand, he made the prophecy that 
the infant boy therein would mark an epoch in human 
history. 


i7 6 


PAT CROWE. 


This incident occurred in July, 1869, forty years ago. 
The woman was my mother, the baby myself. Of the 
peddler I know nothing, save that he at once disap¬ 
peared and nothing has been heard from him since that 
summer day so many years ago. But the strange 
prophecy and the tragic manner in which it has already 
been partially fulfilled is the story that I am going to 


tell. 



I shall tell it truthfully, without narrowness, personal 
bias or any attempt to justify the wicked life I have 
lived. God knows I am heartsick and ashamed of it 
all! By showing plainly the horror, the misery, the 
wretchedness of such a life, I sincerely hope that the 
recital of this sad truth-tale may serve to deter hundreds 
and thousands of young men from ever taking even the 
slightest downward step toward a baleful career such 
as that which has wasted and embittered so many years 
of my life. 


THE FIRST FATAL STEP. 


Ill 


THE FIRST FATAL STEP. 

I was born on a farm near Davenport, Iowa, on 
March 22, 1869. I have no doubt that it was my act 
of abducting Eddie Cudahy that inspired the kidnaping 
of Billy Whitla, just as the kidnaping of Charlie Ross 
gave me my inspiration in the first place. So it seems 
a strange coincidence that Billy Whitla was returned 
to his anguished father on the fortieth anniversary of 
my birth. 



I suppose I was not much different from hundreds 
and thousands of other farm boys. My parents came 
of good stock. My father’s people were of the plain, 
hard-working, practical sort, while my mother’s family 
had some famous scholars and teachers. We had a 
pleasant home. We were not rich, but comfortable. 
My father was a dealer in and breeder of blooded horses 
and cattle. There were twelve of us in the family and 
I was the youngest of five boys. While I was growing 
















i?8 


PAT CROWE. 


up I worked on the farm, getting some education in the 
country school. 

In 1881 we moved to Crawford county, Iowa, where 
my mother died when I was thirteen years old. Three 
years later I went to Omaha. After a while I found 
a chance to work for my board in a butcher shop learn¬ 
ing the trade, sleeping in the shop. 

In 1886 I formed a partnership with a man named 
Pat Cavanaugh, and we opened a butcher shop of our 
own in South Omaha. The firm’s name was Crowe & 
Cavanaugh. We had very little capital, but we did 
well from the start. 

We worked hard and made $30 or more a day clear 
money. But it did not last long. At the end of nine 
months Cudahy, the rich packer, bought out the Lipton 
plant and started a retail market. Then we soon met 
misfortune. 

We did an extensive credit business. Cudahy sold 
only for cash, so he could make the lower prices. Those 
who had spot cash bought of Cudahy and the others 
stayed with us. We ran into the hole right away and 
kept getting deeper and deeper in until we had about 
$2,000 charged on our books and no money left to do 
business with. Then we quit, selling out for what we 
could get, and went to work for Cudahy. 

When I think about it, it seems strange that my 
first unlucky business experience was mixed up with 
Cudahy. The first crime in my life was committed 
soon after I went to work for him. This is how it 
happened: 

One day one of my old customers came in and told 
me that he had no money and that his family was out 
of meat, and he asked me to let him have some until 


A LIFE OF CRIME. 


179 


he could pay for it. He had always paid me when he 
could. I spoke to Mr. Cudahy about it, but he refused 
to give the man credit. It was against the rules. The 
whole proposition made me angry. I watched my 
chance, dipped some meat off the hooks, wrapped it 
up and gave it to the man, with a couple of dollars out 
of my pocket and sent him away. 

Later in the day another customer came in and 
bought stuff amounting to $25. I waited on him and 
he paid me in cash. I put $5 of it in the drawer and 
slipped $20 in my pocket. That was my first fatal mis¬ 
step across the line. I was eighteen years old then. 

When I had once made a beginning, it was easy 
enough to keep it up. I kept that job for four months, 
getting $2 a day as wages and “grafting” freely on 
the cash receipts of the market. I soon found myself 
on the smooth toboggan slide of sin, sorrow, crime, 
misery, wretchedness, and woe that embitters the life of 
every one who departs from the straight path of recti¬ 
tude and right. 

Young man, young woman, as one who has drained 
the cup of abject bitterness to the very dregs, let me 
beg of you, whatever alluring picture the tempter may 
put before you; let me adjure you by the love of the 
mother who bore you, by all that is high, holy, sacred, 
and good, never, never to take that one first fatal step! 
* * * * 

A LIFE OF CRIME. 

Once the first downward step was taken it was easy 
to slip into a life of crime. In my early youth I had 
worked hard for every penny I ever got. I would be 


i8o 


PAT CROWE. 


at my cutting block long before daylight, and often I 
would not drag my weary body away from the shop 
until nearly midnight. And all I got out of it was a 
living and ultimate failure. 

But after I forsook the ways of honest men I soon 
found the money came easy. I would get more in a 
single job than I ever could have hoped to earn all my 
life as a butcher. In my twenty years as an outlaw I 
cashed in several hundred thousand dollars of ill gotten 



gains. But “easy come, easy go.” After making a 
successful haul we would spend the money in a short 
time in wild and foolish excesses. The result was, 
though I gained possession of great sums of money, 
yet I was continually “broke.” 

The lure to crime doesn’t lie altogether in the money 
there is in it. Often when we were flush and spending 
money we would be laying plans for another job, just for 
the excitement of it and “to keep our hand in,” as we 









A LIFE OF CRIME. 


181 


often said. Once the virus of an exciting life enters the 
blood of a man he cannot rid himself of it. The life 
of adventure keeps calling to him and he cannot say to it 
nay. I am told it is the same way with railroad engi¬ 
neers and others who live exciting and dangerous lives. 

The money I gained by robbery was always a curse to 
me. It seemed to be my frantic desire to get rid of it 
as quickly as I could. I and my associates would spend 
our money like water, indulging ourselves in all sorts 
of outlandish whims and fancies, hiring brass bands 
for private concerts and the like. When once we had 
secured dishonest money it burned our fingers like fire. 
We could not spend it fast enough. I am glad now, 
though, that I did get rid of my money in this way. 
I am glad I do not possess a single penny I got dis¬ 
honestly. I am happier now with my wife and babies 
in our modest little Evansville, Ill., home, living on 
what comparatively slight amounts I am able to earn 
honestly than I ever was when every pocket bulged 
with “easy” money. 

I can say this much for myself. In all my years of 
preying upon my fellow man, it was seldom I robbed 
those who had toiled for their money, or who had even 
acquired it honestly. The principal jobs in which I 
was mixed up were against gamblers, gun men and 
gambling houses. It is true I have been wanted for 
train robbery and other crimes against legal wealth, 
but most of my money was taken from those who had 
little better right to it than I. 

It is, indeed, strange, the wonderful transformation 
that time and circumstances will work in the life of 
man. As I sit here writing, my thoughts wander back 
over those exciting years of my criminal career and I 


I 8 2 


PAT CROWE. 


am forced to marvel at the reckless way in which I 
acted and the little regard I had for a human life. 
The strangest of all is the fact that I never killed any¬ 
one, and I realize now the wonderful mercy God has 
shown me during all those years of my sinful past. 

Terrible as have been the deeds of my life, the crime 
of murder can never be charged to my account. But 
I fully believe that if I had been guilty of this dark 
sin, even, the blood of Calvary could have cleansed its 
stain away! Hence, if any poor sinner who may have 
taken another’s life reads these lines, let him look up 
and take courage, for God is ever ready and willing 
to forgive—even such as he. 

Ah! how many are the weak and misguided sons 
who, even as I did, wander away from the father’s 
house, all unaware of the evil spirits that come as if 
by magic out of the dark under-world like a pack of 
hungry wolves ready to destroy all that is innocent, pure, 
and holy within them! Twenty years of my life have 
passed, mingling with the undertow, but never has my 
mother’s loving care in my childhood been forgotten. 
There is but one love that is greater than mother’s 
love, and that is the love which Christ bears for us all— 
that love which sent Him to this world to seek and to 
save the lost; that love which reaches out for all 
humankind. How gladly would He lead us home if 
we would but answer His call! 

During twenty years of misery and crime, a constant 
protecting higher power watched over me, so that many 
people were fully convinced that I bore a charmed life. 
For amid all the varied circumstances of my checkered 
career, that Providence has restrained me from ever 


A LIFE OF CRIME. I 83 

taking the life of my fellow man, and has likewise pre¬ 
served my own life in many desperate combats. 

During the years of my criminal career I would often 
read in the newspapers where Pat Crowe had been sus¬ 
pected of several different robberies on the same night 
in widely different parts of the country—often with a 
space of several thousand miles between the places 
where the crimes wre committed. People would declare 
that they had seen me in the neighborhood and were 
ready and willing to swear to the same. In nearly every 
case where a sensational crime is committed, there will 
bob up some person or persons who claim to know all 
about it, when in reality they know nothing at all, and 
are simply seeking notoriety and reward money. 

In fact, it was due to this propensity of people to 
swear to anything against a notorious outlaw that I 
served a term of three years in the Missouri state prison 
for a train robbery committed in Missouri in 1894, of 
which I was entirely innocent. I can state this now and 
be believed, for I have since confessed to other crimes 
for which the authorities had no evidence against me, 
so I can have no other motive than truth in disclaiming 
any guilt in connection with this particular crime. How¬ 
ever, at the time, I took my sentence willingly, pre¬ 
ferring to serve this light sentence for a crime of which 
I was innocent rather than to be taken to other states 
on charges of which I was guilty. 

But as this particular case forms an interesting chapter 
of my life, I will relate it here to show how dark and 
wicked a life I was leading at the time. 


184 


PAT CROWE. 


THE NIGHT TRAIN ROBBERY. 

Four boys, ranging from eighteen to twenty-one 
years of age, conspired to rob the Burlington express 
train at St. Joe, Missouri. One of the number turned 
informer and a fake train, loaded with detectives and 
deputy sheriffs, was sent out in place of the express. 
The young robbers stopped the train with a red lantern. 
During the melee two of the youths were shot dead, 
one was wounded and captured and the fourth, the 



informer, hid beneath the express car and escaped in¬ 
jury. 

There was much criticism of the police for shooting 
down the boys in that fashion. A few days later three 
real bandits, masked, held up the same train, looted the 
express car safe of a large sum of money, and escaped, 
saying “they just wanted to show the railroad officials 
that they could do business with them without being 
caught or killed.” 



THE ESCAPE FROM JAIL. 


I8 5 

This second, successful robbery was very humiliating 
to the officers, who had boasted after the killing of the 
would-be robbers that no criminals would attempt a 
similar job. The express company detectives began 
work on the case, and a still hunt was instituted for some 
trace of the bandits. 

Seven months later I was arrested in Milwaukee, 
Wisconsin, and after remaining in jail two months, 
I was taken to St. Joseph, Missouri, where I was placed 
in jail and charged with being the leader of the gang 
who successfully looted both the Burlington express 
trains. 


THE ESCAPE FROM JAIL. 

I could see liberty only by making my escape, as I 
was wanted both in Iowa and Colorado for robbery 
and I knew very well that in some state I would be tried, 
convicted and probably given a long term in prison. In 
a few days I secured from a friend a small saw secreted 
in a magazine. With this tool I sawed my way to 
liberty, first by cutting out of my cell and then cutting 
the bars from a window. 

I also liberated five other prisoners, two of whom 
were sentenced to hang. One of these, a colored man, 
was captured the following day and returned to jail, 
where he was executed a few days later. The other 
remained in my company for sometime, as also did a 
United States prisoner, who had escaped with us. 

We endured many hardships, for it was winter. We 
traveled by night, hiding during the day. It was mid¬ 
night when we crawled through the hole made in the 
window, and one after another slid down on a rope 


186 


PAT CROWE. 


made of blankets, which we had torn to strips. The 
night was very dark, there being no moon. By choosing 
the darkest streets and walking rapidly we soon were 
in the extreme outskirts of the city and there we shook 
off pursuit. 

The second night out we were sheltered in a log 
cabin by a woman who was a friend of one of our num¬ 
ber. She awakened us at four o’clock in the morning. 
After partaking of breakfast and hot coffee we departed. 
After remaining all day in the timber we boarded a 
freight train for Omaha. The night was bitter cold 
and, the distance being one hundred and twenty miles, 
we suffered great hardship and would probably have 
frozen to death had we not entered the railroad depot 
at Union, Nebraska, and stood for a few moments by 
the stove. 

While standing by the fire the village night marshal 
entered with a large Newfoundland dog. Both myself 
and my companion were armed with Colts’ new pattern 
army and navy revolvers. Before entering the depot 
we had agreed that should the night marshal appear 
and ask any questions as to who we were or where we 
were going, both of us should quickly cover him with 
our revolvers and disarm him. But he asked no ques¬ 
tions, and I have often wondered if he did not recog¬ 
nize us as the fugitives. Nevertheless, he acted wisely, 
as the right hands of us both rested upon cocked revol¬ 
vers in the pockets of our overcoats. 

After warming ourselves we returned to the long 
freight train and boarded a box car, the floor of which 
was covered with pig iron. The temperature was about 
thirty below zero, and after riding over an hour we 


THE ESCAPE FROM JAIL. 


I8 7 


began to freeze. Realizing our danger, we tore some 
boards from the side of the car and built a fire upon the 
iron. This soon warmed us up and all went well on 
the rest of our trip. 

Reaching the suburbs of Omaha, we dropped off 
the freight train, each of us with a revolver clutched 
in his right hand as we made our way through the side 
streets of that city, ready to kill any officer or citizen 
who might attempt to interfere with our progress. We 



soon reached the home of a friend without having oc¬ 
casion to try our weapons, or test our marksmanship 
upon some human target. 

My lease of liberty was not to last very long, how¬ 
ever. Four months later I was captured in the post- 
office at Cincinnati, Ohio, and taken back to St. Joe, 
Mo., where I entered a plea of guilty and was sentenced 
to serve a term of three years in the Missouri state 
prison. 



18 8 


PAT CROWE. 


THE CUDAHY CASE. 

The story of the kidnaping of Eddie Cudahy really 
begins many years before the boy was actually taken. 
It begins when, in my early years as a bandit, I was in 
Philadelphia, a fugitive from the West, which had be¬ 
come too hot for me. 

I was walking in the suburb of Germantown with an¬ 
other man—also a crook and a bad man—when he 
pointed out to me the house in which Charlie Ross lived 
prior to his abduction. I displayed the interest in the 
case one outlaw has for the work of another. Later I 
saw a tavern in which the kidnapers were supposed to 
have stayed while making away with Charlie Ross, and 
finally I saw the house where Mosher and Douglas were 
shot down, after which Douglas made a dying confes¬ 
sion that he and his pal were the kidnapers. 

Little did I realize then that I would ever attempt 
the same desperate crime. My only interest then was 
the natural one in being at the scene of a crime that was 
historical. But I really believe it was this occasion which 
planted the germ that later resulted in the kidnaping of 
Eddie Cudahy. 

I was a desperate man just prior to the Cudahy kid¬ 
naping. I had been reviewing my past life. Twice had 
I passed through the gates of prison, a convicted crim¬ 
inal. For all my crimes and my suffering I had nothing 
to show for it. I was penniless and friendless unless I 
chose to seek the companionship of criminals. 

In other words I was tired of my earthly existence. 
I regarded my life as a failure. I decided I would pull 
off the most daring job of my career. I determined to 


SHREWDLY LAID PLANS. 


189 


go after Cudahy’s gold by committing a desperate crime 
—a kidnaping—a trespass upon the sanctity of a home. 
I had a motive of revenge in the job, for it was Cudahy’s 
rival butcher shop that had caused my business failure in 
my youth. 

In laying my plans I decided that the Cudahy kid¬ 
naping would be only a practice job, a job to get money 
enough to carry through an even more desperate crime 
than that. For I had in mind the kidnaping of a cer¬ 
tain famous man—one of the wealthiest in the United 
States. I expected to touch him up for three or four 
millions. And there is no doubt in my mind today, nor 
has there ever been, as to my ability to have carried this 
off successfully. But God saw fit to turn my life into 
another channel, so the Cudahy kidnaping became the 
pinnacle of my criminal career. 

* * * * 

SHREWDLY LAID PLANS. 

I planned the Cudahy job alone, and I planned it 
thoroughly. I rented a house to be the boy’s prison. I 
mapped out the ground for the delivery of the ransom. 
I prepared a burying spot for the ransom. I even took 
the care to ascertain how much gold coin I could carry 
and ride a horse. I found the maximum amount was 
$25,000, and so that was the sum I demanded. I would 
take nothing but gold, for that alone cannot be iden¬ 
tified. 

When I had completed my plans I set about to find 
a confederate who should assist me in the job. I secured 
*one upon the promise of ten per cent of the ransom 
—the sum of $2,500. 


9 o 


PAT CROWE. 


*Note.—Pat Crowe’s confederate has since reformed 
and is now honestly trying to live down his dark past. 
For that reason his name is not mentioned here.—H. P. 

Then we were ready to begin operations. Eddie 
Cudahy at the time was 16 years old. I was not so 
foolish as to pick a younger child, for the younger the 
kidnaped boy the greater is the public indignation. We 
watched the habits of Eddie Cudahy and one evening 
just at dusk we drove up on Omaha street and met him 
as he was walking along the sidewalk. We pulled our 
slouch hats down over our eyes and stopped him. 

* * * * 

THE ABDUCTION. 

“We are deputy sheriffs,” we told him. “We want 
you for escaping from the reform school.” 

The boy was very cool about it. After a slight pro¬ 
test he consented to get into the buggy. We started 
to drive toward the Omaha jail. Then I turned to my 
pal. 

“Hadn’t we better, before taking him to the jail, see 
if she can identify him?” I suggested, “she,” of course, 
being a purely mythical person. 

“Yes,” answered my pail, turning the horse from the 
main street. 

Then Eddie spoke coolly. He had been sitting 
quietly, evidently thinking hard. 

“Aw, I know what you want,” he said. “You’re 
after some of my father’s money.” 

“You’re right,” we answered, and then all three of 
us laughed. 


THE ABDUCTION. 


I 9 I 

The boy had not had the chance to see us in the dusk 
with our hats pulled down over our eyes. But by this 
time it was dark, and we put on black masks. We 
blindfolded young Cudahy, and, after driving in circles, 
finally came to the house I had rented in the suburbs of 
Omaha. The boy was taken to an upstairs room and 
tied. Thereafter we never went in to see him without 
wearing masks, so he never at any time saw our faces. 



That night a stick carrying a letter demanding ran¬ 
som, was tossed upon the Cudahy lawn. Then we es¬ 
caped using the U. S. mails. We knew the letter had 
been found by Cudahy next day by the newspapers 
which were black with headlines over the matter. 

The letter had carried minute instructions regarding 
the delivery of the $25,000 in gold demanded. I had 
sized Cudahy up as a man of nerve, so I had little fear 
he would fail to carry out his part for lack of courage. 
I made doubly sure of getting quick action by threaten- 


192 


PAT CROWE. 


ing to burn out Eddie’s eyes with acid if the ransom 
were refused. Then I added this line which I regarded 
as the most powerful force in the letter: 

“If your son is blinded other men will know we are 
not to be trifled with.” 

I knew Cudahy would not believe we would blind his 
son for revenge. But he would fear we would make an 
example of Eddie to aid us in other jobs. 



At my birth my mother became blind and remained 
so for forty days, at the end of which time she was al¬ 
most miraculously cured. When I was a boy she would 
tell and retell to me the fascinating story of her blind¬ 
ness and the wonderful healing of it. 







THE THREAT OF BLINDNESS. 193 

THE THREAT OF BLINDNESS. 

The horror of blindness thus indelibly imprinted 
upon my mind at my mother’s knee was later the one 
thing that prompted me, when spurred on by the demon 
lust for gold, to threaten the burning out of Eddie 
Cudahy’s eyes with acid as a sure means of extorting 
money from his millionaire father. This awful crime 
of wicked torture I never could have done—I never 
would have done. But one thing I knew, that appalling 
threat would bring the money. $25,000? Yes! 
$50,000? Yes! $100,000? Yes! A million? Yes! 
And still more millions? Yes—from any father, from 
any mother who had it to give! Marvelous the power 
of a human thought! Truly thoughts are things won¬ 
derfully potent for good or ill. This childhood horror 
of blindness, together with a greed for gold, suggested 
to my mind the committing of the most deplorable 
crime in my long, weary years as an outlaw. 

Excitement in the case was intense. Detectives 
swarmed into the city. We only had young Cudahy 
for one day, yet that day was enough to try the nerve 
of my pal to the limit. I had set the hour for the de¬ 
livery of the ransom for eight o’clock the next evening. 
When the time came for me to go, my orders to my pal 
were to stay and guard the boy. Suddenly his nerve 
failed him. ' He begged me not to leave him alone 
with the kidnaped boy. He would not consent to go 
to the spot designated and receive the ransom 
himself. Instead he was in a panic, urging that we turn 
the boy loose and make our escape while we could. I 
finally had to draw my gun and threaten him with 
death unless he obeyed my wishes and stayed to guard 


i 9 4 


PAT CROWE. 


young Cudahy. He must have known I meant business, 
for he calmed down and consented to stay. 

I had ordered the boy’s father to deliver the $25,000 
in gold coin in a satchel on a lonely road west of Omaha, 
known as the Fremont road. Cudahy was to come 
alone, being allowed only a driver. He was to drive a 
distance of forty miles if necessary. Whenever he 
should see a lantern hanging beside the road he was to 
leave the satchel there and return immediately to the 
city. His carriage was to carry a red lantern. 

* * * * 

THE RANSOM DELIVERED. 

I placed my lantern at a distance of only seven miles 
from Omaha and waited, being concealed in the black 
shadow of the forest, thirty feet back from the lan¬ 
tern. My heart pounded in my throat as I saw the red 
light in the distance and waited the approach of the 
carriage which conveyed the ransom money. As I stood 
there by the road-side, which passed through a deep cut 
surrounded on two sides by dense timber, coupled with 
the extreme darkness of that moonless night, the scene 
was in perfect harmony with the blackness of my crime. 
That purpose was to secure money to spend in wasting 
my life like millions of others who live for themselves 
and the pleasures of this world and the environment 
pleasing to sinners. Such a life does not carry true hap¬ 
piness with it. For what manner of man cares to follow 
a career whose ultimate earthly existence can have but 
one end—failure? 

I stood there with my index fingers crooked about the 
triggers of two revolvers that rested one in each side 


THE RANSOM DELIVERED. 


95 


coat pocket. But I knew I would have no use for them. 
Cudahy was a man of nerve. He saw the lantern, 
stopped, examined it for certain marks I told him to 
look for, set down the heavy satchel and drove back 
without a word. For all he knew there might have 
been one desperate man or a half dozen back in the 
w r oods covering him with their guns. Yet he never hesi¬ 
tated. 



The ride after that was the most painful I ever took. 
The heavy satchel gouged into my stomach at every 
gallop. I rode fourteen miles and buried $21,000, 
taking back the $2,500 for my pal and keeping out 
$1,500 for myself. 

I reached the house well before midnight. We blind¬ 
folded young Cudahy and put on our masks and, though 
the city was filled with detectives, we led the boy to 
within a few blocks of his house. Then we removed 
the bandage from his eyes. 


196 


PAT CROWE. 


“Do you know where you are?” we asked him. 

“Yes,” he answered, and we released him. He 
stopped first to roll a cigarette and then strolled leis¬ 
urely toward the Cudahy mansion. As he neared it, 
however, he broke into a run and went up the front 
steps three at a time. 

* * * * 

EDDIE RETURNED. ESCAPE. 

Then started the most stupendous man hunt of a 
century. My pal and I at once separated. Soon there 
were rewards of $55,000 for me, dead or alive. I re¬ 
mained secreted in Chicago for two years, during 
which time I often read of my capture in widely sep¬ 
arated parts of the world. 

The minute I picked up the satchel from under the 
lantern I heartily wished I had never heard of Cudahy 
or his riches. Money of that kind, blood money, is a 
terrible curse. At the end of six months I had had 
enough, and, indirectly, through a priest, I offered to 
restore the $21,000 I had buried if the hunt would be 
called off. Cudahy, however, was inexorable, and my 
offer was refused. 

How I spent the time makes little difference. I could 
not trust a single person on earth, for the $55,000 re¬ 
ward made me unsafe with anyone. One drunken wretch 
whom I had befriended was the only man who knew I 
was in Chicago. He never told. At the end of two 
years I had grown a full beard. The mental stress of 
being hunted had aged me greatly. My hair was turn¬ 
ing white. I judged my appearance had changed 
enough to safeguard me against capture. So I ventured 
to leave Chicago. 


A WORLD HUNT FOR PEACE. 


197 


A WORLD HUNT FOR PEACE. 

Then I began a world-wide quest to find some place 
in which I was not always, every waking minute, 
dreading capture. My travels took me to South Africa 
and to India. At the end of four years I could bear 
my burden no longer. I determined to return to Amer¬ 
ica, surrender myself and receive my punishment. 
Prison were infinitely better than the mental Hell in 
which I was living. 

I arrived in Omaha, Nebraska, on September 6, 1905. 
I entered the city under the cover of darkness and re¬ 
mained in the home of a friend for several days, during 
which time I was making arrangements to surrender 
and furnish a bond for my appearance in court at the 
time set for my trial. I had prepared to give myself 
up to the county sheriff, when a trusted friend came to 
my hiding-place and informed me that the chief of 
police had declared that I must surrender to the chief 
of police, and not to the sheriff, adding that if I failed 
to comply with his request, his men, forty of whom were 
in citizen’s clothes, had been detailed to bring me in, 
and would capture or kill me inside of twenty-four 
hours. 

I paid little heed to this declaration, but I informed 
the chief that my intentions w r ere to give myself up to 
the sheriff, and that if his plain-clothes men attacked 
me, I would probably die in the mix-up. 


198 


PAT CROWE. 


MY FINAL GUN BATTLE. 


A few hours after this conversation I found myself 
surrounded by four of the chief’s picked men. It was 
just dusk when the four officers stepped from a passing 
street car and formed a half-circle around me. Without 
a word all four opened fire, and continued to shoot un¬ 
til their revolvers were empty. It was plain to be seen 
that they shot to kill. 

Nevertheless, I escaped without a scratch. The fail¬ 
ure of the twenty-four shots fired with intent to kill, 



with only a space of ten feet between us, seemed to 
lend truth to the statement that I bore a charmed life. 
During the mix-up, I shot one of the officers in the 
leg, and he was carried away in the police ambulance 
to a hospital, where the bullet was extracted from his 
leg. The wound was not serious. 

After my escape from the Omaha police I went to 
Carbon county, Wyoming, and remained at the home 



MY FINAL GUN BATTLE. 


199 


of a friend who lived with his family in a canyon 
known as Purgatory Gulch, some fifty miles or more 
from a railroad in the Sierra Madrid mountains. Aft¬ 
er I had spent there three weeks hunting, fishing, and 
climbing the mountains, I began to tire of my life once 
more. The immense solitude of the mountains made 
the fact that I was a fugitive, and sooner or later would 
have to account for my crimes, weigh more heavily upon 
my mind than ever before. Contact with Nature 
seemed to quicken my conscience and to teach me rever¬ 
ence for God. 

As I sat by the swift-flowing streams, dashing on¬ 
ward through the rocky canyons, carrying fallen 
branches from beneath the snow-capped mountains, 
rushing into the great rivers which swell the bosom of 
a mighty ocean—alone in silent wonderment, I dwelt 
in thought on the Almighty hand which guides the many 
worlds as they everlastingly revolve through infinite 
space. 

The shortness and uncertainty of my earthly life 
rose up before me like a dark, threatening cloud in a 
desolate land, and my weary spirit yearned for shelter 
beneath the Rock of Ages. I longed to pillow my 
troubled brow upon the Christ-like faith which was the 
treasured possession of my dear mother when her sweet 
spirit parted from my presence long years ago and jour¬ 
neyed out into the great beyond. 


200 


PAT CROWE. 


THE SURRENDER. 


I bade good-by to my friend and in heaviness of 
heart journeyed by stage coach and rail to Butte, Mon¬ 
tana. In Butte, I had a friend telephone to police head¬ 
quarters, telling them of my presence in the city and 
my determination to give myself up. At first the police 
regarded the telephone message as a huge joke. Not 
until the third message was sent to them did they re¬ 



spond. Then they appeared. Two plain-clothes officers 
walked up to me and, placing two cocked revolvers to 
my head, commanded, “Hands up!” I obeyed. 

“Keep cool! Don’t get excited, gentlemen, I am 
here to surrender!” I assured them. 

In company with the two officers, I walked quietly 
to the county jail, where I was locked up for five days 
pending the arrival of Omaha detectives. Then I went 




THE SURRENDER. 


201 


back to the city which had become famous the world 
over as the scene of the Cudahy abduction. 

I was given quarters in the county jail, in the “soli¬ 
tary,” where prisoners condemned to death are held. 
As the jail door closed behind me, I gazed about the 
gloomy interior of my temporary home with a feeling 
of unspeakable loneliness. I slept and then my tired 
brain was troubled with many dreams of other scenes 



in other years, when life held many charms for me. As 
I awoke, from my heart there came a bitter sigh. Oh, 
how sweet is life and liberty after all! But life with¬ 
out liberty is not worth the living! I saw plainly my 
fifteen years of wasted life. Oh, God in Heaven, must 
I spend the remaining years of my life in a living hell? 
Must I perish, die miserably in a prison cell? It seemed 
as if the sun of hope were setting as my thoughts went 
out from the gloomy interior of the jail back through 







202 


PAT CROWE. 


the vista of bygone years—back to the home of my 
boyhood. 

While I lay on the jail cot the big iron door swung 
open and in stepped the jailer, followed by James P. 
English, an eminent attorney. The very presence of 
the lawyer inspired within me a new hope, and the dark 
clouds which overshadowed the sunlight of my liberty 
appeared to be breaking the end of a mental struggle 
that had covered many years. 

Then came three jury trials; two in Omaha, and 
one in Council Bluffs, Iowa—the first for wounding the 
officer, the other for robbery in the first degree, being 
the extortion of $25,000 in gold in the Cudahy kidnap¬ 
ing case; in Council Bluffs, the charge being the rob¬ 
bery of two street cars loaded with passengers. The 
jury returned a verdict of not guilty in every case. 


s)c 


* 


THE PROPHECY FULFILLED. 

I was not tried on a charge of kidnaping, because at 
the time of the abduction there was no law in Nebraska 
providing a penalty for such a crime. Many other 
states found their own laws in a similar condition. The 
result of the Cudahy case was that stringent laws 
against child stealing for ransom were passed in many 
states. Thus was the old peddler’s prophecy—that I 
would mark an epoch in history—fulfilled. 


THE PROPHECY FULFILLED. 


203 


Thus the hand of Providence intervened and ended 
forever my criminal career. It would be useless for 
me to attempt an explanation for this change of heart. 
I credit the greatest reason for this change to a natural 
law which causes all humankind to tire of the things 
which bring them unhappiness and seek that which 
does bring happiness. I have tried both, the wicked and 
the just ways, and I am free to say that one day serv¬ 



ing the Lord and leading an honest, upright, Christian 
life is worth more than a score of years in a life of 
selfishness and sin. 

It is natural for men and women to seek the grandest 
thing in this world and I now believe, after many long 
years of serious study and thought on the burden of 
life, that the grandest thing in this world is the Chris¬ 
tian religion, if we have but the power to understand 
it, the faith to believe in it and the unselfish courage to 
live within its sacred domain. What a great life this 






204 


PAT CROWE. 


would be if while we are here on earth we would all 
embrace or desire to embrace Christianity! 

How the empty prison walls would crumble and de¬ 
cay, those walls which now hold captive an army of 
discontented men and women, thousands of whom sigh 
in hopeless despair! 

I am now starting out to make atonement for the sins 
of my past life, endeavoring to create a noble future 
for myself and for my family. If I am successful in 
doing this, it will be by a continuous battle against great 
odds. 



THE END. 


Contents 


Juggernaut . 3 

Publishers’ Preface. 5 

Author’s Foreword . 9 

CHAPTER. PAGE. 

I. The Great Stone House. 13 

II. Billy Whitla is Stolen. 19 

III. The Light in the Window. 27 

IV. The Hue and Cry. 33 

V. The Hunt Begins. 39 

VI. The Mysterious Letter. 49 

VII. The Arrival of “G. B.”. 55 

VIII. The Good Faith of Whitla. 63 

IX. Waiting. 69 

X. The Darkest Hour. 77 

XI. Hopes Rise Again. 85 

XII. “It’s Him ! It’s Him!”. 89 

XIII. A Nation Mad With Joy. 95 

XIV. The Arrest of the Kidnapers.107 

XV. The Woman of Mystery.121 

XVI. In the Kidnapers’ Den.131 

XVII. The Ransom’s Curse.149 

XVIII. The Wages of Sin.157 

XIX. Guard Against Kidnapers.165 

XX. The Charlie Ross Case..169 

“How I Kidnaped Eddie Cudahy,” by Pat Crowe. . 173 













































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